A-4C Skyhawk
Douglas Aircraft’s famed designer Ed Heinemann designed the Navy A4D Skyhawk to replace the propeller driven AD-5 Skyraider. It was built small so that more could be accommodated on a carrier, where it excelled as the lightweight high-speed bomber for the U.S. Navy and Marines. It is a maneuverable, powerful, attack bomber with great altitude and range capabilities, plus an unusual flexibility in armament capacity. The small plane bucked the trend to “bigger is better”; it offered a powerful punch, serving as the Navy’s primary light bomber in the Vietnam era. One of its advantages in carrier service is its delta wing was so compact it didn’t require a folding mechanism.
Fleet delivery began in September 1957. The A4Ds were redesignated as A-4s in 1962. The Skyhawk’s combat career began when it became the first American carrier-launched aircraft to raid North Vietnam on August 4, 1964. The aircraft would see heavy combat throughout the war. Senator John McCain would be shot down while piloting one over Hanoi and spend five years as a P.O.W. The later A-4F Skyhawk served as the aircraft for the famous U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration team from 1974 to 1986.
A total of 638 night/all-weather capable A4D-2N Skyhawks (A-4C after 1962) were manufactured. Our aircraft, BuNo 148502, was built in El Segundo, California as the 348th of this variant. A total of 2,960 A-4s of all variants were produced.
The Museum’s A-4 flew with the Navy in Southeast Asia, remaining active through the 1970s. In the late 1980s the plane was transferred to the Naval Air Maintenance Training Detachment School in Memphis, TN. There it served as a training aid for Naval Aviation specialists.
The aircraft was acquired by the Aerospace Museum in 2006. The aircraft is painted to represent the “Blue Angels” number “1” airplane, flown by the team Commander. Volunteers from the Aerospace Museum of California restored this aircraft in 2006 and again in 2022.
Specifications
Crew: One
Powerplant: One Wright J65-W-20, 8,200 lbf thrust (36,475 newtons)
Dimensions:
• Wingspan: 27 ft 6 in (8.4 m)
• Length: 40 ft 4 in (12.3 m)
• Height: 15 ft 0 in (4.6 m)
Weight:
• Empty: 10,800 lbs (4,898 kg)
• Normal take-off: 24,500 lbs (11,111 kg)
Performance
Maximum Speed with a bomb load: 560 mph (900 kph)
Unloaded top speed: 646 mph (1,040 kph)
RANGE: 1,008 nm (1,160 mi, 1,867 km)
SERVICE CEILING: 42,250 ft (12,878 m)
Armament
Two 20 mm cannon in wing roots; provisions for several hundred variations of armament loads including bombs, missiles, ground-attack pods, torpedoes, and countermeasures equipment.
THIS AIRCRAFT IS ON LOAN FROM THE NATIONAL NAVAL AVIATION MUSEUM, PENSACOLA, FLORIDA