Vought A-7A - Vietnam Air Force

[Spinners 15,966]

Vought A-7A Corsair - 522nd Fighter Squadron, Vietnam Air Force, 1974

 

Following the signing of the Kissinger-Tho accord in Paris on January 28th, 1973 all US air operations over North and South Vietnam ended although operations in Laos continued into the following month and operations over Cambodia continued right up until the August 15th cut-off date stated in the Cooper-Church amendment. As a prelude to the South being effectively on their own a massive amount of US equipment had been transferred over to the South and whilst the Vietnam Air Force had welcomed the A-37 Dragonfly and F-5 Freedom Fighter aircraft President Thieu had repeatedly asked for the more capable F-4 Phantom but was repeatedly denied.

 

During early 1974 the Vietnamese Air Force began the return to service of many of the stored A-1 Skyraiders but these, and the Cessa O-1 Bird Dog, were becoming increasingly vulnerable to the shoulder-mounted SAM's now being used against them and Vietnamese Air Force commanders made a desperate plea for better tactical aircraft to support the hard-pressed ARVN forces. With the scaling down of US forces the Nixon administration allowed the free transfer of 50 A-7A Corsairs from the US Navy to the Vietnamese Air Force and these were hastily transferred during March 1974 in an operation optimistically entitled 'Peace Piper' by Pentagon officials.

 

 

 

 

 

LOL I'm making good use of the A-7P download.

Edited March 31, 2013 by Spinners

[TeargasHorse 287]

Cool!