A-4 Skyhawk fly model 1:48

[hyair]

When the Skyhawk arrived to the IAF in late 1967 after the Six day war it was the first American jet fighter to enter IAF service.
The concept was great - a light weight plane with short span not requiring folding wings for carriers operations.
Also with the J52 engine of 4.2 ton it could take a bomb load of almost 4 ton for a short range !
The Vautour was already 9 years in service when the Skyhawk came. The Vautour could carry the same bomb load but had many advantages over the Skyhawk. Two Atar 101E with 3.5 ton each.
Had an internal bay for bombs that allowed him to release bombs in a dive in supersonic speed ! - something the skyhawk couldn't perform and a higher penetration speed at low level when bombing. Since the Vautour had 2 engines it could fly with only one and had a much higher ceiling
of more than 50k feet and therefore some were adapted for photografing mission with special cameras. But the Vautour was a very complex beast and required 15 h of maintainance per 1h flight.
The big advantage of the Skyhawk
was it's ease of maintainance and that US could supply it in big numbers.
As the Vautour prduction ended in 1960 all Israel could master is to grab few from surplus 2nd hand left by the Armee the l'Air .
At the begining of Six day war only 20 remained from the 30 Israel bought in 1957-58.
Israel happent to be the 2nd largest operator of Skyhawks and some 250 served in the IAF.
The Vautour was phased out of service at the begining of 1972 due to the small number left - only a force of 10 which was not economical to operate.
The Vautour is Yoav design
and I enlarged it to 1:48 from 1:50
and added a cockpit to give the model more realisem.

Yair

[hyair]

In 1966 U.S was at last willing to sail fighters to Israel after some 12 years of embargo . In Israel two candidates were rivaling- the A-4 Skyhawk an d F-5a Tiger. After some debates it was decided to choose the Skyhawk.
The main reasons were the better payload and greater range.
Both planes were considered easy to maintain and without complicated electronic systems . The Tiger main advantage was that of speed but again at low level attack the penetration speed difference is around 100 kph maximum between the fastest and slowest attack planes . The only Tiger advantage is the 2 afterburners that allowed it to perform a better escape maneuver from surface to air missiles launches. Anyway in 1966 only the F'-5A was available and not the much better F-5E which was much more effective fighter.
Part 1 - WILL BE CONTINUED

Yair

[hyair]

Images of the two side by side.
The F-5 is from Mali and Skyhawk from Fly model - both in scale of 1:48.

Yair

[Vinalssergio155]

Another plane that I like, the F-5 was a very good plane.

[hyair]

Hi Sergio - the F-5a was a simple plane in it's first version. The Americans put it for a test in 1970
in Vietnam in an operation called "Skooshy Tiger" that was very successful. I always wonder what would have happened if Israel was buying it - An history that you can't tell....

Yair

[hyair]

The Cutlass was looking very special NAVY fighter and some attack Squadrons recieved the type in VA initial titles as VA155 or VA83 etc....
In service the Cutlass was proved to be an ill child and despite the very appealling looks had many accidents on board carriers and very hard maintainance due to new systems that were not mature yet and the phase out of service started at late 1956-1957 after only 3 years in service. Some planes had less than 50 hours of flight when they were transffered to the bone yard.
The A-4 Skyhawk was one of the successors of the Cutlass and went to serve in many attack squdrons instead of the Cutlass.
It's sits on the ground with the elevated nose was very much the same as the Cutlass but this apart it was much simpler to work on with and had a much better fuel range with ease of maintainance in mind. The NAVY was very happy with the "scooter" and developed it further with newer versions to come with improved systems and higher thrust J52 engine instead of the J65.
Most of the remained Cutlasses were moved to lictfield park near Phoenix AZ and the type was forgotten.
I pose the two side by side and the Cutlass is from WHM with a scratch build cockpit - both scale is 1:48 .

Yair

[Vinalssergio155]

The A-4 victorious. The Cutlass and its strange design perhaps was very sophisticated for its time?

[hyair]

Dear Sergio - The Cutlass was the most radical design ever to enter NAVY service !!!
I have below a link to my Cutlass build diary and you can find a lot of useful info about the Cutlass there.

F7U-3M Cutlass 1:50 Whilhelmshavener

Yair

[hyair]

Both arw attack planes but the way they do it is very different.
The SU-7 is a big plane which carry relativly small bomb payload
when attacking at low level and it's size make it a big target to aim at as many were shoot down by Israelian AA fire.
The Skyhawk is much smaller and carry more bombs payload for longer distances while only slightly slower. The SU-7 bring in mind the F-105 which belongs to the same family with big fuselage
and high supersonic speed at height but slow at low level and not faster much from the Skyhawk at low level when bombs are carried. Again the dedicated plane here wins this confrontation here.

Yair

[Vinalssergio155]

The fabulous little Skyhawk is victorious again.