A-4 Skyhawk fly model 1:48

[hyair]

In 1965 Israel bought from France
Thomson CSF company two ECM pods. The pod was very big and was called callus because of it's size. The only plane that was able to carry it was the Vautour. During the Six day war in 1967 two Vautours flew
special missions when the attack
of the Focus operation started - destroy of the Egyptian planes on the ground by surprize.
The Vautour was phased out from service and the only plane that could lift it was the little Skyhawk.
In Yom Kippur war in 1973 many Israelian planes were shootdown from SAM's and there was an eurgent need to operate the callus.
The only problem was that the Skyhawk could only lift it up to 20 K feet which was not the effective working height while the Vautour easily took it to 40 K feet .
I put the two side by side and it is clear the much bigger wing area of the Vautour was the main factor here.

Yair

[hyair]

The Skyhawk and Skyray came from the same Douglas company.
The Skyhawk first flight was in 1954 and the Skyray in 1951. The development of the bat wing Skyray was much longer due to the J40 engine failure and rthe need to replace it with the J57 .
On the other hand things went much smoother with the light attack Skyhawk plane. So both entered service in 1956 with different roles - that of the Skyhawk light attack plane and the Skyray an interceptor.
The difference in Speed was small at low level 1162 vs 1088 and 1160 vs 1000 at 36K feet.
The Skyhawk could carry much higher loads and had much better range because of the less thirsty J65 non afterburning engine in compare to the Skyray's J57.
The Skyray was produced in small number of 420 while the Skyhawk almost 3000. The Skyhawk served with newer versions until 2016 in the IAF while the Skyray until 1963 only. Therefore the Skyhawk participated at Vietnam war and Skyray didn't.
It is really hard to compare between the two in direct terms but the Skyray strong point was it's climbing ability to height in 70 degrees with full afterburner and that was the ereason why it was the only navy plane to serve in NORAD as an interceptor.
However the Skyhawk long and great carrier put the short living Skyray on a shade.......

Yair