Was wondering if the old propeller driven A-1 would still be viable in today’s low intensity conflicts. It did pretty well in Vietnam (at least until the SA-7’s came along) and has long lioter time and huge ordnance capacity for a prop plane. Anti-drug operations in South America or counterinsurgency missions in the Philippines? Seemed like a good “what if” scenario.
By: PhantomII - 29th April 2003 at 07:41
Ironically, before I posted this thread, I had gone through that exact site.
Thanks for the help though.
Hopefully some more info will turn up.
By: atc pal - 28th April 2003 at 21:07
A-1 ordnance
Phantom II.
Found some time ago two excellent Skyraider sites at
One is very fascinating a virtual “book”: Byron E. Hukee: “The A-1 Combat Journal”
The USMC used the A-1 in Korea. A standard “Sandy” load had 720 rounds for the 4 x 20 mm M-3 cannons.
From the “book”:
“The ordnance carried for a search and rescue (SAR) mission was: 720 rounds of 20 mm for the M-3 cannons, 1,500 rounds of 7.62 ammo for the SUU-11 minigun, 4 x CBU-25 canisters with high explosive bomblets, 2 x CBU-22 canisters with smoke bomblets, 2 x AN-M47 white phosphorus smoke bombs, 2 x LAU-3 pods with 19 HE (high explosive) rockets each, 2 x LAU-59/68 pods with 7 WP (white phosphorus) marking rockets each. The four M-3 20mm cannons used percussion primed (as opposed to electric primed) ammo which had to be drawn from Korean war surplus since it was no longer produced during the Vietnam War era.
The limiting factor on the duration on a Skyraider mission was the oil supply. Despite having a 38.5 gallon oil sump, auxiliary oil tanks were fitted for long ferry missions.
The Skyraider carried sufficient ordnance to deliver ordnance on over 100 passes on a single sortie.”
Also colour pictures of standard loads. Video clips and sounds of the BIG Wright Cyclone engine. Radio transmissions from actual rescue missions. A goldmine of fascinating stuff. Enjoy!
atc pal
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September 2, 2000 at 2:07 pm