YA-7D "Corsair II"

The Corsair II was designed to meet a 1963 Navy requirement for a light attack plane to replace the A-4. The Navy’s A-7A made its first flight in September 1965. Two months later, the Air Force chose the A-7 as a low-cost way to provide specialized close-air support to the Army, and more than 450 A-7Ds were eventually delivered to the USAF. A-7Ds flew 12,928 sorties during the Vietnam War, including the last air strike into Cambodia. The last A-7Ds in combat were flown by Air National Guard pilots during Operation Just Cause in Panama in December 1989. The A-7D first flew at Dallas, TX, in April 1968, with follow-on testing at Edwards AFB. The A-7D on display is the number 2 prototype aircraft, hence the Y designation, and it served its entire career in flight test at Edwards. In March 1982, it made the first totally fiber optic-controlled flight using a single-fiber flight control system.

Edwards AFB, California · United States