Douglas A-4 Skyhawk

The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a single-seat, subsonic, carrier-capable light attack aircraft that the United States Navy and Marine Corps flew from the mid 1950s. Ed Heinemann of Douglas Aircraft designed it to replace the piston-engined A-1 Skyraider and kept it so small and simple that its wing needed no folding for carrier stowage and its weight came to about half of what the Navy had specified. The XA4D-1 prototype first flew on 22 June 1954 and the type entered service on 1 October 1956. Douglas designed and produced it and McDonnell Douglas later built it, with production ending in February 1979 after 2,960 aircraft, 555 of them two-seat trainers. Skyhawks saw combat in Vietnam, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War and the Falklands War.