he built it a little shorter to make it less sensitive in pitch

There’s a far easier way than that to make it less sensitive in pitch…

Wow. Trolled into 17 posts, and it wasn’t even Operation Bolo. (18 now.)

Led by Dr Mary Ryan they have developed and tested an environmentally friendly solution based on citric acid.

Actually, this was done several years ago at the maritime-preservation lab at Texas A&M.

and that parachutes being used as support for the tail section were five in number…

I’m particularly amused by the thought that five crewmen would give up their parachutes to -maybe- help hold the tail on. Hey, worth a try, right? Wrong.

So far, Steve’s published account of the incident is the only one I’ve seen that’s obviously correct.

That thing went minimally viral a year or two ago. It’s a model airplane.

It wouldn´t really be possible, would it?

Anything is possible, given a high enough power-to-weight ratio. You could fly a wingless fuselage, if you had enough power. Numerous navy aircraft have taken off, flown and landed successfully with their wings folded, and an Israeli F-15 some years ago flew with its entire left wing gone–the pilot didn’t even know what he’d lost until after he landed and climbed out of the airplane–after a midair collision.

So yes, it is possible.

In case you’re unaware of the Neil Williams incident referenced above, he had a main-spar failure while practicing for a world aerobatic competition and immediately inverted his Zlin, which loaded the spar in the direction opposite to the failure. He flew his entire return to base and approach inverted and at the last possible second rolled the airplane upright and touched down before the spar failed again.

Last possible second? There was a mark in the runway grass where his wingtip had brushed the surface while passing through vertical on the way to upright, and there were grass stains on the wingtip and wingtip-light lens that had made the mark. Yet it had been done so precisely that the light lens wasn’t even cracked.

You don’t seem to understand what I wrote. Of course Vietnam-era airmen knew what a French Spad was, I’m not in any way contesting that. I’m just saying that you’re reading way too much into the reference by concluding that they named the AD “SPAD” because the WWI airplane was strong, tough, resilient, etc. etc. They nicknamed the AD SPAD simply because it was, like the WWI Spad, archaic. Simple as that.

I was posting a picture of a predecessor to the Skyraider, that’s what I meant by “would become”.

Virtually all of any manufacturer’s airplanes are evolutionary. I’m sure there’s a little bit of the Lockheed 10 Electra in the Constellation, a little bit of the Piper Apache in the Cheyenne. But to say a midwing/gullwing, tri-gear maritime torpedo bomber (BTD-1) became a conventional-gear, straight/low-wing, ground attack airplane (XB2D-1) is, as I said before, a stretch.

Not denying that Ed Heinemann learned lessons from it, but that’s the way the creation of pretty much any airplane works. And of course you’re right in saying the BTD-1 was “a predecessor” of the Skyraider, though I think you’re wrong in saying it “would become” the Spad.