VX-5

Before VX-9, there was VX-5. Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 5, the Vampires, spent more than four decades as the Navy’s attack-aviation test squadron, most of them in the Mojave Desert at China Lake, Calif. Its job was to take new aircraft, weapons and tactics and fly them the way the fleet would. The Harrier was part of that story: an AV-8A was assigned to the squadron by November 1979, and the Vampires’ China Lake home would stay at the center of Harrier testing long after VX-5 merged into VX-9 in 1993–94.

Quick Facts

Nickname: Vampires

Harrier years: AV-8A on strength by November 1979; the squadron was merged into VX-9 in 1993–94

Aircraft: AV-8A Harrier, among the squadron’s many attack types

Home base: China Lake, Calif., from 1956; NAS Moffett Field, Calif., before that

Parent units: Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force (COMOPTEVFOR)

Tail code: XE, still worn by VX-9

Distinction: Commissioned in 1951, one of the two squadrons that became VX-9, the Navy’s operational test squadron for strike and fighter aircraft

Today: The Vampires name lives on at VX-9, still at China Lake

The Harrier Years

1951 — Commissioned on June 18 at NAS Moffett Field, Calif., as Air Development Squadron Five, to develop and evaluate tactics and techniques for delivering airborne special weapons.

1956 — In July, VX-5 moves to China Lake as an independent tenant command.

1970s — Renamed Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Five, keeping the VX-5 designation.

1979 — In November, AV-8A Harrier BuNo 158387 is transferred to VX-5 at China Lake. It moves on to the Air Force Plant Representative Office in St. Louis in January 1980.

1984–85 — The AV-8B Harrier II’s operational evaluation runs from August 31, 1984, to March 30, 1985, with China Lake among the bases it flew from.

1993 — In June, the Chief of Naval Operations directs that VX-4 at Point Mugu and VX-5 at China Lake be consolidated into a single operational test and evaluation squadron, VX-9.

1994 — VX-4 is disestablished on September 30, and its assets pass to VX-9, the Vampires.

The Mission

Operational test. VX-5 was formed at the dawn of the jet age to work out how Navy attack aircraft would deliver special weapons, and it grew into the squadron that told the fleet whether new attack aircraft, weapons and tactics were ready for combat. Developmental testers prove a system works as designed. An operational tester like VX-5 flies it the way a fleet pilot would.

The first Harrier. The earliest Harrier we can place with VX-5 is AV-8A BuNo 158387, transferred to the squadron at China Lake in November 1979. The same jet, later rebuilt as an AV-8C, went on to fly for NASA and is now preserved at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum.

The Harrier II arrives. The AV-8B’s operational evaluation, flown by four pilots with a team of maintenance and support Marines from August 1984 to March 1985, tested the new jet under combat conditions, flying from China Lake, Camp Pendleton, MCAS Yuma and Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake. The Night Attack Harrier followed, with its first delivery to the Marine Corps in September 1989, and the radar-equipped Harrier II Plus first flew on September 22, 1992.

Still being written. We have not yet confirmed VX-5’s own role in the AV-8B, Night Attack and Harrier II Plus test programs, or the story of the Marine pilots and maintainers who flew Harriers with the Vampires. If you served with VX-5 at China Lake, we want to hear from you.