War Ready

An A-7 Corsair is prepared for launch in the "danger zone" aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean and is armed with Mk-82 high drag bombs. The AC has completed its forth sortie as it is "war ready" for it's fifth sortie.

As Over time, the Corsair acquired other names such as 'SLUF' ('Short, Little, Ugly, Fella'), 'the Harley', and for wary deck crews working in front the A-7's large intake, 'the Gator'.

The Air Force A-7 Corsair II was derived from the
Corsair developed for the Navy in the early 1960s,
and was more or less ordered off-the-shelf. The
first USAF prototype flew on April 6, 1968. The only
significant changes to the LTV-built Navy version
were use of a different engine and addition of a
20 mm cannon (which the Navy later adopted).
Somewhat less than beautiful, the A-7—in both
the Air Force and Navy versions—proved to be
both effective and highly adaptable.
The A-7 was intended to replace the A-4 Skyhawk,
and it sprang from a requirement to be developed
from an existing type. LTV won with a highly modified
version of its F-8 Crusader, a fact which helped
speed A-7 development. The Corsair II had a shorter
fuselage and larger air intake, but its wings were
roughly the same size, and it used both leading edge
and trailing edge flaps, as well as upper surface
spoilers, as did the F-8. The A-7’s main strength
was payload; it could carry up to 15,000 pounds
of ordnance. USAF expressed interest in 1966,
ordering an A-7D with a more powerful engine.
The Navy A-7 entered combat in Vietnam in December
1967 and flew more than 90,000 combat
missions there. The Air Force A-7s pulled heavy
combat duty late in the war, flying close air support
missions and serving with search and rescue
operators. The type achieved high accuracy with
bomb drops by the aid of an automatic electronic
navigation and weapons delivery system. In 1973,
the Air Force began assigning A-7Ds to Air National
Guard units.

This is a mixed media project, AC based on a photo by the U.S. Navy Public Domain. Painted BG and AC painted and edited with GIMP. Thanks for looking. Cheers, Mike