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The completion of Navy Attack Squadron 25’s third Vietnam tour in April marked more than the end of a combat cruise; it also drew the curtain on major U. S. Navy A-l Skyraider operations. Following VA-2 5’s return to the United States and its subsequent transition into newer attack aircraft, only a few AE-1F Skyraiders will be retained in the Navy inventory. These recent photographs of VA-25 air operations from the USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) off Vietnam therefore document the end of an era that began over 23 years and 3,000 Sky- raiders ago, when the first Douglas AD prototype took to the air in March 1945.
Even as the Navy’s A-l operations off Vietnam were ending, the Fleet’s newest light attack aircraft, the Ling-Temco-Vought A-7A Corsair II was entering the same conflict. Navy Attack Squadron 147 received A-7As last year and deployed to the Western Pacific in the USS Ranger (CVA-61) in November 1967. Its aircraft, seen off Vietnam in these photographs, are single-seat, single-engine, subsonic jets designed specifically for attack and close support missions. Having very low maintenance requirements and a high degree of survivability, they can Carry more than twice the payload—or the same payload twice as far—as any other current light attack jet. In addition to the Navy’s two A-7 replacement squadrons, at least 11 A-7 Fleet squadrons have been commissioned to date.
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Length Wing Span Height
Weight, empty
46 feet, 1 inch 38 feet, 9 inches 16 feet, 2 inches 14,850 pounds
Design Catapult Weight 32,500 pounds Internal Fuel Capacity 1500 gallons External Fuel Capacity 1500 gallons
Pratt & Whitney turbofan 11,000+ pounds of thrust (no afterburner)
600 knots on the deck, cl*afl two 20-mm cannon and ass° missiles
Ordnance Capacity 15,000 pounds, on 8 statiof5
Engine
Maximum Speed Armament
The A-7B, now in production, has a more powerful engine than the A-7A (12,000+ pounds of thru5
The A-7D, the U. S. Air Force version, will carry a still more powerful engine (14,000+ pounds of thfl an M61 6-barrel 20-mm Vulcan cannon, and will embody various avionics changes
The A-7E, a later Navy version, will also carry the M61 Vulcan cannon and improved avionics equiPn’
199 A-7As were delivered to the Navy, 196 A-7Bs are on order, and with future production of the ^ the Navy inventory of Corsair IIs may eventually reach more than 1,000 aircraft.
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Line drawings by William Clipson, from Ling-Temco-