Posted on 10/20/2015 6:21:16 AM PDT by C19fan
On Aug. 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein’s army stormed into the tiny kingdom of Kuwait with 120,000 troops and 300 tanks. While the invasion certainly shocked the world, the Iraqis did not roll in completely unopposed. Among the first responders were Kuwaiti air force A-4KU Skyhawks, which took off under artillery bombardment and lashed out at the invaders.
By the time the little jets and their pilots evacuated Kuwait – some landed on highways after their bases were overrun – they had gunned down a third of the nine Iraqi helicopters reported destroyed, and wrecked an unknown number of Iraqi vehicles.
Small, nimble and simply built, the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk served the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps from 1956 onward for nearly 40 years. Built as a nuclear-attack capable light bomber, Skyhawks incurred the highest losses of any Navy aircraft during the Vietnam War.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
A third of the nine helicopters... That is like a quarter dozen of them!
We had one Marine Scooter drop napalm in front of us so low that the burst of flame enveloped his whole plane. When he emerged from the fireball, he had flames in the little bits of vacuum behind his wings and stab. He pulled up, did a little snap roll and all of us cheered like we were attending the world's best airshow.
A buddy of mine, LtCol VanEs flew his Scooter in direct support of the attacks on Hue City's Citadel in '68. That's his Skyhawk in all those famous photos. Took unbelievable precision and courage to fly that low to get the hits in that critical objective.
Brazil has a carrier flying A4’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_aircraft_carrier_S%C3%A3o_Paulo_(A12)
I remember building the now very old Revell ‘box scale’ kit of the Skyhawk from the late 1950s. I thought it was a ‘really neat’ looking aircraft.
http://www.oldmodelkits.com/jpegs/Revell%20H232-89%20A-4Daa.JPG
Yep. We didn’t get in it. We put it on.
My father worked for McDonald Douglas in Long Beach. He proudly displayed a bumper sticker on his car that read “A4s Forever!”
I have a feeling that these are the sorts of planes, in large numbers, the USA will need in the future.
Not the super-expensive F-35.
I remember my first squadron OpsO walking me out to my first flight at Cherry Point, saying “remember, this is $600,000 of taxpayer money in your hands.” Today, that money would scarcely buy a new radio.
TC
That is too funny! The P-51, which basically won the air-war in Europe in WWII, cost about $50,000 per copy. If you trust US Gov't inflation statistics, that is about $675,000 in today's money.
Were you in Marine Air Group Mag-20? Our phantom squadron had a sister squadron of A-4’s. They were so funny parked on the tarmac. It was hard to believe they actually flew with there tall landing gear and short stubby wings. I often wonder if Cherry Point during that era didn’t have more aircraft then the whole Air Force today.
I saw an A-4 land gear up at Cubi Point. The runway had been foamed and the pilot literally greased ‘er in.
no muss, not really much fuss
When I think of the A-4 Skyhawk, I remember the Falklands War when the Argentine Air Force would fly their Skyhawks at almost water level in the Falklands Sound.
They’d weave in and out among the British warships trying to find a good target. Totally brave and daring.
The Argentine Air Force acquitted (sp?) themselves much better than the Army did in that war.
Fist time I watched an A-4 do a run while approaching from the air in a helo, it scared the shiite out of me how low he pulled out. Thought for sure he had target fixation and was going in.
Do recall and F-4 pilot telling us how much easier they were to line up for a bomb run. Said the A-4 tended to move all over while the F-4 sat there in the groove.
The takepoff roll with a full bomb load + fuel was long, that little engine did not have much thrust.
You can see from the discoloration around the 20mm muzzle (wing root) that his cannons got a lot of use.
F-4s, on the other hand were brave but didn't fly as low or bomb as accurately and sometimes hit one treeline over from where you asked them to. Which was rough on community relations.
Do you remember the story about a flightline corporal at El Toro that stole an A-4 in '68 or '69 and flew it for an hour and then landed it - all at night? From what I heard, he had flown gliders a lot but this was his first time up solo in a power plane - in an A-4! As I had heard it, he lightly damaged one gear door but landed it fine otherwise. Tells you a lot about how good A-4s were to fly.
The Corps had no idea what to do with the guy!
Good thing he didn't try to solo an F-4..
You are right, from what I have read about the F-4, no way he could have brought that off, a much trickier and more complex machine with deadly quirks.
"On July 4, 1986, 21-year-old Marine Lance Corporal, Howard Foote Jr., an aviation mechanic at El Toro, took an A4 Skyhawk on an unauthorized 90 minute joyride over southern California. Foote, an accomplished glider pilot, was despondent after recently learning that due a medical condition he would never be able to fly in the Marines".
According to subsequent news reports, LCpl Foote was not court-martialed but got an Other-Than-Honorable discharge as his punishment.
Guy I was stationed with at El Toro was tuned down for OCS due to some medical condition. Pissed him off, so he made the case that if he was no fit to be an officer, than not fit to me a Marine, and got out early on a medical.
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