Pilot, Supervisors on the Same Plane

With the Marines long gone from El Toro, its aircraft packed and shipped, aviation buff Daniel McCoy feared the debate to make the air station a commercial airport would cloud memories of its impact on Orange County.

“This was the crown jewel in Marine Corps aviation,” said McCoy, a Santa Ana police captain and civilian pilot. “For more than 50 years, thousands of people went through that front gate. Many eventually settled here and contributed significantly to the county.”

To commemorate the place and the people who served there, McCoy wants a plaque and an A-4 Skyhawk mounted near the county Hall of Administration in Santa Ana. County supervisors approved the concept last month, and the county requested a Skyhawk from the Navy.

Now, to raise $100,000 for the jet’s restoration and the display, McCoy has approached veterans groups seeking both donations and assistance.

“We need people who are willing to volunteer and help put the finishing touches on the A-4, and that means contractors and architects willing to do in-kind services,” he said. “You got to understand, we don’t have big bucks for this--this is grass-roots.”

McCoy has never flown an A-4, which had a distinguished service record in Vietnam and was used by the Navy to train combat pilots. But his fascination with the fighter began as a boy making frequent trips with his father, a Navy inspector at the former Douglas aircraft plant in El Segundo.

He remembers climbing into an A-4 cockpit and fantasizing that he was airborne, shooting down enemy aircraft and protecting ground troops.

For combat pilots, the jet, which was designed by Edward H. Heinemann and called “the Scooter,” because of its small size, was special.

“It was like being in a . . . Ferrari,” said Tom Elser, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who flew the single-seat “Scooter” in Vietnam over Bien Hoa. “It was so nimble, just a tweak of the stick and it would do what you wanted it to do. You could put the stick on the side and it would slam your head on the canopy. It was that fast.”

Elser, who is on McCoy’s Skyhawk advisory board, said the aircraft’s small size--39 feet long with a 27 1/2-foot wingspan--makes it a perfect memorial.

The aircraft was slower than today’s F-18s, which succeeded it. But the jet’s quickness and size allowed its pilots to fly fast and low in support of ground troops.

“The A-4 had a tremendous record in Vietnam, and up until recently, most naval aviators learned to fly on an A-4,” said Harry Gann of Huntington Beach, former curator for the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station’s museum.

McCoy and the advisory board want the memorial in Santa Ana, not El Toro, whose political fate as a potential commercial airport might overshadow the tribute.

“I started thinking about what the base meant to Orange County, and I thought this would be an appropriate send-off and remembrance,” McCoy said. “Santa Ana is the county seat, and we already have a war memorial there.”

Mention an airport at El Toro, and immediately it can polarize communities in the county, McCoy said. So when he went before county supervisors, he firmly planted his tongue in cheek and said: “How would you like a project about El Toro that all five board members would agree on?”

They did. Besides approving the concept, supervisors said they would help McCoy and his project team find a facility, possibly at El Toro, for restoration of an A-4, once one is secured.

“Millions of people have watched the [El Toro] air show, and you have to remember that for more than 50 years, hundreds of thousands of Marines and civilians worked there and then settled in nearby cities,” McCoy said. “Everybody knows that El Toro had a Marine Corps base now. But will the public know that 20 years from now?”

McCoy can be contacted at the project’s e-mail address, A-4project@hotmail.com. To make a contribution, call the Orange County Community Foundation at (949) 553-4202. The donation should be made to the Orange County Marine Corps Memorial Foundation.