Douglas A-1 Skyraider
The Douglas A-1 Skyraider is a single-seat, piston-engined attack aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, first flown on 18 March 1945 as the XBT2D-1 and produced as the AD until the 1962 redesignation made it the A-1. Designed as a combined dive-bomber and torpedo-bomber, a successor to types such as the SBD Dauntless, it arrived too late for the Second World War but became a mainstay of the Korean and Vietnam wars, flying close support, interdiction and rescue-escort missions for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force and for several foreign air arms. Douglas built 3,180 in twelve years of production; Skyraider pilots were twice credited with downing MiG-17 jets over Vietnam, and survivors now fly as warbirds and stand in museums.
Why It Mattered
The Skyraider began with a 1943 U.S. Navy decision to combine the dive-bomber and torpedo-bomber missions in a single type flown by one pilot. Douglas answered with a design drawn up in a Washington hotel room in July 1944, and the prototype XBT2D-1 flew on 18 March 1945. Ordered into production that May as the AD-1, it missed the Second World War — production was cut back when that war ended — but it became a central attack aircraft of the next two. In Korea its crews called it "the best and most effective close-support aircraft in the world". Redesignated A-1 in 1962, it fought on in Vietnam, where Air Force Magazine's Walter J. Boyne records that some consider it the best propeller-driven ground-support aircraft ever built.
Design Notes
The design team was headed by Douglas chief engineer Ed Heinemann, with Leo Devlin as chief designer and Gene Root as chief aerodynamicist. Because rival prototypes had been ordered six months before, Douglas won its contract only by promising prototypes on the same schedule — and the XBT2D-1 still flew almost four months ahead of schedule. The aircraft was a large single-seat monoplane powered by one Wright R-3350 radial engine, an engine whose development brought ever more horsepower as the design matured. Its lifting strength was remarkable: even with full internal fuel, a torpedo, two 2,000-pound bombs, rockets and guns aboard, the Skyraider remained under its 25,000-pound maximum gross weight. The basic airframe proved adaptable: the wide-bodied AD-5 seated two crew side by side with room behind them for systems operators, and other versions served as early-warning radar platforms, electronic-warfare aircraft, target tugs and search-and-rescue aircraft. Production ran twelve years, to September 1957, and totalled 3,180 aircraft in eight major models and 37 versions.
Operational History
Its first war was Korea, where Navy and Marine squadrons flew close air support and interdiction against North Korean supply lines. Crews valued its ability to lift extremely heavy ordnance loads, its accuracy in dive-bombing and its rugged construction, which on the AD-4 included armour plate. Abroad, the Royal Navy flew 50 AD-4W early-warning Skyraiders from 1951, retiring its last in 1962, while France acquired ex-U.S. Navy aircraft in 1956 to replace P-47 Thunderbolts in Algeria. French Skyraiders served until the end of the Algerian War and went on to operate in Chad, Djibouti and Madagascar. In 1960 the South Vietnamese Air Force began operating Navy-supplied A-1Es and A-1Hs, and in 1962 the U.S. Air Force acquired 150 A-1Es and A-1Js for its own use. The 1962 Department of Defense designation overhaul renamed the surviving ADs: AD-5s became A-1Es, AD-6s A-1Hs and AD-7s A-1Js. In Vietnam its signature mission was rescue escort: as "Sandy", flying low and slow, A-1s suppressed ground fire while rescue helicopters picked up downed airmen. Twice, Skyraider pilots were credited with shooting down North Vietnamese MiG-17 jets — The Aviationist calls the type the last piston-engined aircraft to shoot down a jet fighter. The first credit, on 20 June 1965, was shared by VA-25's Charles Hartman and Clinton Johnson, flying from USS Midway in support of a rescue mission. The second was awarded to VA-176's William Patton on 9 October 1966, during a rescue combat air patrol flown from USS Intrepid. The Navy's last Skyraider combat tour ran from July 1967 to 1968 aboard USS Coral Sea, but Air Force and South Vietnamese Skyraiders fought on. By 1973, all remaining American A-1s had been turned over to the South Vietnamese Air Force.
Afterlife
The combat career ended on 30 April 1975, when South Vietnam surrendered and most of the remaining A-1s were destroyed. Four aircraft escaped to Thailand, however, and David Tallichet's Military Aircraft Restoration Corporation brought them to Long Beach, California, and restored them to flying condition. One of the four, A-1H BuNo 135332, was transferred to the National Air and Space Museum on 2 May 1982, and it remains in the Smithsonian's collection today. Other Skyraiders are displayed by museums around the world — one A-1H stands in the Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi — and a number still fly as warbirds, among them an A-1E photographed at the Reno Air Races in 2007.