United States Attack Aircraft 1940-1949 - Douglas A-1 Skyraider, Douglas A-26 Invader, Vultee A-31 Vengeance, North American A-36 Apache (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 30. Chapters: Douglas A-1 Skyraider, Douglas A-26 Invader, Vultee A-31 Vengeance, North American A-36 Apache, Grumman XTSF, Grumman AF Guardian, North American AJ Savage, Hughes D-2, Brewster SB2A Buccaneer, Curtiss XSB3C, Curtiss XBTC, Beechcraft XA-38 Grizzly, Douglas A-33, Vultee XA-41, Brewster XA-32, North American A-27, Kaiser-Fleetwings A-39. Excerpt: The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (formerly AD) was an American single-seat attack aircraft that saw service between the late 1940s and early 1980s. It became a piston-powered, propeller-driven anachronism in the jet age, and was nicknamed "Spad," after a French World War I fighter. The Skyraider had a remarkably long and successful career and inspired the straight-winged, slow-flying, jet-powered successor, the A-10 Thunderbolt II ("Warthog"). It was operated by the United States Navy (USN), the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) and the United States Air Force (USAF), and also saw service with the British Royal Navy, the French Air Force, the Air Force of the Republic of Vietnam (VNAF), and others. The piston-engined AD Skyraider was designed during World War II to meet requirements for a carrier-based, single-seat, long-range, high performance dive/torpedo bomber, and was a follow-on to earlier dive bombers and torpedo bombers used by the Navy such as the Helldiver and Avenger. Designed by Ed Heinemann of the Douglas Aircraft Company, prototypes were ordered on 6 July 1944 as the XBT2D-1. The XBT2D-1 made its first flight on 18 March 1945 and in April 1945, the USN began evaluation of the aircraft at the Naval Air Test Center (NATC). In December 1946, after a designation change to AD-1, delivery of the first production aircraft to a fleet squadron was made to VA-19A. The AD-1 was built at Douglas' El Segundo plant in Southern California. In his memoir The Lonely Sky, test pilot Bill Bridgem...