"question vought corsair a7 fighter capable" Topic

guys
just read recently some nations Portugal and Greece I think was using the a7 in secondary air to air role, so just wondering how good would the a7 be in a close in dogfight with say a mig 21

Pretty bad. Its thrust-to-weight ratio was low and it was too easy to exceed the engine exhaust temperature limit. The large chin intake and the high-bypass turbofan also limited maximum speed, which means that it had high form drag as it got closer to its maximum lever speed. Too easy for the MiG-21 to blast past the pass and then go into the vertical to maneuver. The only redeeming feature is that the MiG-21 didn't have radar-homing missiles (not realistic ones, anyhow), so it was limited to rear-quarter shots.

Take an F-4 against an A-7 and it just recreates the Phantom's first kills in Vietnam: blow through supersonic, pull up into a medium climb while extending, reverse, use the room that you've opened up to give you time to lock the radar, come back downhill, and launch Sparrows at high speed. Done properly, the target simply won't see the missiles coming.

My money is on the MiG-21. The A-7's fighter cousin the F-8 Crusader is much better in a dogfight.

I'm thinking they may have been more used in an air policing role rather than intercepting fighters. IIRC Portugual didn't have any fighters at all for some time, and the A-7 was about as aggressive as they got.

Damon.

The SLUF didn't have any sort of meaningful air-intercept radar, or missiles for that matter. As emckinney already stated, its kinematics are…shall we say…not optimal for A2A engagements.

The only redeeming feature is that the MiG-21 didn't have radar-homing missiles (not realistic ones, anyhow), so it was limited to rear-quarter shots.

And the A7 has lousy rearward visibility.

The A7F would have been a different story, but that's basically an F8 Crusader fitted with the same engine as the F15 and F16. Would have been quite the beast, but why take the rebuild of a rebuild of a 1950s design when the F16 was available?

I suspect that the 'secondary air-to-air' role had more to do with shooting down helicopters than anything else.

-Will

The A-7 can carry a pair of Sidewinders, plus the internal cannon(s). If you need to force down an errant Learjet, you don't necessarily need more than that. Oh I agree it is far from optimal, but for a country like Portugual, it was probably adequate for what they needed.

Damon.