Douglas A-1 Skyraider Attack Aircraft
 

Let's have something big hairy and British.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...Erxi6ixi_o#t=2

If you are interested in reading about the real thing then Google "My Secret War" by author Richard S. Drury.


A riveting book superbly written by Rick Drury who flew them in Vietnam

The aircraft went by the names "Able Dog" and "Spad". Anyone any idea of what period the two names had currency or introduced, Able Dog would seem to be early as the old phonetic alphabet is used, when then was Spad introduced?.

Quick search suggests that SPAD is a reference to the WW1 French biplane but others aren't convinced though no-one has come up with an alternative theory. Perhaps it started when the A-1 was in French service in the 1950s?

That sounds a reasonable explanation. The Skyraider would have been known to both the US and French as the AD (signifying a Douglas-built attack aircraft) prior to 1962 under the US Navy designation system, before it was superseded by the tri-service system and redesignated A-1.

Bit of research finds that the AD-1 Skyraider designation was assigned in February 1946, as Dave says the designation was changed to A-1 on 11 September 1962 under the new unified Department of Defense system in which Navy and Air Force aircraft were designated according to the same scheme. From that my take is Able Dog became Spad on the change over of designation, always known as Spad to us in Vietnam.

Yes, the AD Skyraider had seven major variants (AD-1 to AD-7) and a whole bunch of minor variants identified by various suffixes, for example the AD-4W and AD-5W AEW versions.

Curiously, in 1962 the DoD appears to have redesignated the seven variants still in service as A-1D to A-1J, so I'm not sure what A-1A/B/C had been originally intended for.

The first Skyraider version was the AD-1, later versions were the AD-2, AD-3 and AD-4.

When their nomenclature was harmonised the AD-4 became the A-1D, the AD-5 the A-1E etc.

The previous variants were not given new nomenclatures because they were no longer in service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-1_Skyraider