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It is a cooling air vent. I believe it goes with the extra avionics cooling intake fitted to the A-6E (all that air needs to exit the fuselage somewhere); I have not seen it on early A-6Es without the additional intake.

Edited by KursadA
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That is the aft air cooling turbine exhaust. The aft air cooling turbine supplies cold air to the electronics in the bird cage area, this was modified when the CAINS (or Carrier Aircraft Inertial Navigation System) electronics suite was added to the A-6E in the early 1980s as part of the CILP (conversion in lieu of production )order of A-6's and later modified to the rest of the fleet as they went through the depot process.

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That is the aft air cooling turbine exhaust. The aft air cooling turbine supplies cold air to the electronics in the bird cage area, this was modified when the CAINS (or Carrier Aircraft Inertial Navigation System) electronics suite was added to the A-6E in the early 1980s as part of the CILP (conversion in lieu of production )order of A-6's and later modified to the rest of the fleet as they went through the depot process.

So an EA-6A would not have this vent then correct?

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Great Pic thx, Thats the exact paint scheme I'm working on with BuNo 156987

A choice that betrays an excellent taste. ;)

Looking forward to pics of your model!

Cheers,

Andre

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As far as I know and my references tell me, although the EA-6A did not receive the CAINS upgrade similar to what was applied to the A-6E

Which would seem to make sense, since CAINS denotes Carrier Airborne Inertial Navigation System, and the EA-6A was firmly landbased when CAINS came along.

Cheers,

Andre

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Andre,

Yes and no.

800px-EA-6A_VAQ-309_on_cat_of_USS_Enterprise_%28CVN-65%29_1989.JPEG

From 1989, a USNR VAQ-309, "The Axemen", EA-6A onboard the USS Enterprise with two AERO-1D's, a ALQ-167 ECM pod and an ALQ-76/99 pod on the centerline position. Taken by the DoN media during CVWR-30 work ups in the summer of 1989.

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Andre,

Yes and no.

800px-EA-6A_VAQ-309_on_cat_of_USS_Enterprise_%28CVN-65%29_1989.JPEG

From 1989, a USNR VAQ-309, "The Axemen", EA-6A onboard the USS Enterprise with two AERO-1D's, a ALQ-167 ECM pod and an ALQ-76/99 pod on the centerline position. Taken by the DoN media during CVWR-30 work ups in the summer of 1989.

"Yes and No" is correct. Being a Naval Reserve squadron under (CVWR-30 Reserve Air Wing 30)...the Pac Fleet reserve airwing, VAQ-309 were normally shore-based, but deployed on det with the entire reserve airwing (typically every-other year) aboard a carrier for a qualification period. On the off-years, CAG-30 would typically do a land-based det. I was with them the year following the above photo for a det aboard USS Nimitz in August 1990. The Axemen were flying EA-6Bs, and one of their pilots received the 'top hooker' award for the best boarding grades of the air wing for the line period. Not bad for a squadron flying and qualifying in new (to them) jets. The following year we (CAG-30) were back on land with a run through the SLATS course at NAS Fallon.

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