First flown in September 1965, the A-7 Corsair II replaced the A-4 Skyhawk as Naval Aviation's front-line light attack aircraft. The multi-mission A-7E Corsair II excelled in precision ordnance delivery and also carried out surface search and surveillance, inflight refueling, air superiority, mining, and close air support. The aircraft highlighted here began its career in February 1974 with the VA-82 Marauders Squadron and deployed aboard the USS Nimitz on her maiden cruise in 1975. During VA-82's September 1979 deployment, the USS Nimitz was sent to the Indian Ocean as tensions rose over Iran's seizure of 52 U.S. hostages, and four months later Operation Evening Light was launched from Nimitz in an attempt to rescue them, though the mission was aborted in the Iranian desert when too few helicopters remained operational. Until May 1981, the aircraft operated off the Nimitz, then in June 1981 it joined the VA-37 Ragin' Bulls on the USS John F. Kennedy off the coast of Lebanon after the Israeli invasion until February 1982. In September 1982, it deployed with the VA-105 Gunslingers before reassignment to the VA-83 Rampagers in February 1983. In 1985, while deployed to the USS Saratoga, it supported operations in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea as well as Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya, when squadron aircraft fired AGM-88 HARMs at a Libyan missile radar site in the missile's first combat use. After its final mission flight with the Rampagers in 1988, the A-7E became a training aircraft at the Naval Strike Warfare Center in Fallon, Nevada, where it remained until April 1991, when it was assigned to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. It was then loaned to Edwardsville Township for display, arriving by helicopter in May 1991, and in 2017 a restoration campaign restored it with a vinyl wrap, the first aircraft restored in that manner. Restored to its original flight condition, it bears the markings of its first squadron, the VA-82 Marauders, as used aboard the USS Nimitz, including modex number 303, tail code AJ identifying its carrier air wing group, its bureau number, and a tail emblem of an eagle with a ribbon in its beak.
