Pittsburgh A-7D, The "SLUF"!!
 

Thought that you guys would like a pic of my old ANG unit at the "Burgh".. 112TFG/146TFS when we had the A-7D/K.. Those were the days, never to be seen again.. Enjoy!!

I was a weapons guy on A7's in the IA ANG. Great airplane. I saw all our A7's in the boneyard at DM a few years back. They are all beer cans now. :crying:

Every airplane I worked on or flew is gone now. Even the early F16's.

NICE!! I work with a guy that was with the 171st in Coraopolis PA. They fly only KC-135R model tankers now.

REALLY?? I just retired from the 171stARW back in '04.. I worked in Operations and my brother retired from the Skycops around '02.. Can you give a name??

Have a good friend, an Academy grad who flew A-7's out of D-M. Great airplane-very good range, accurate bomber, reliable, carried a lot of weapons. Really a better plane at its' mission then its' sucessor- F-16. By the way- great picture

I'd rather not say his name Sluf01. Sorry. Not trying to play "Mall Ninja" but he reads all the gun forums and he knows my forum tag.:embarassed:

I will say he worked in COMM and left Pittsburgh around 1998 to move here. He was actually here before I arrived in 2000. I'm pretty sure you probably new him if you were in OPS.

BTW. I'm retired active AF and I was also in COMM for the last 16 years of service.

Those were the days. I was in the 121st out of Rickenbacker and we flew D/Ks as well. I have a similar photo except it's A-7s over Columbus. I actually preferred the green/black camo over the gray though

Yeah, I knew a couple of folks outta "Ric" OPS also.. As we USED to say before the big tanker world came real: "Fighters Forever"!!

Great picture and stories!

This thread perked my curiosity and I googled the A-7. Found this video on you tube, the planes belong to the Greek AF but a cool video nonetheless! (apologies if you A-7 guys have seen this clip a million times)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0zCvwhPlU4&NR=1

:thumbsup:

HEY, It's still an A-7.. I believe the Greeks birds are ex-Navy "E" models and their Family models (2 Seats) are TA-7C's.. There's pics out there of the Greek A-7 done for the Tiger Meets. Very pretty bird..

In fact I just found a pic of the "Tiger Meet" A-7.. Enjoy..

I enjoyed the picture ... nothing like see Three Rivers Stadium again

Just to show that not only did the A-7's go to the boneyard. Here's a pic of one the KC-135E's from my last unit (171st ARW) with the "University Of Pittsburgh" nose art sitting in the Arizona sun for it's retirement..

From '73
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x...os/A-7D001.jpg

Corsair II's right ?

I remember them from my SE Asia tours with the Navy. They could carry a huge load of bombs. IIRC more than the empty weight of the A/C.

Looks like in the above pic the A/C still has several CBU's that are "unused".

Great A/C with a great rep. !!

Used to love watching them out the back window of my barracks room as they flew out of the NAF side of Kadena AFB. Sweet pics!

Thanks for the memories. Can remember digesting the weapons systems when I went through loader school back in 1988. Mostly Guard birds by then as I recalled. Was reported a good CAS bird later when I moved to TACP. Never did direct work with them though. Thought they were the ugly girl you screwed, had fun with but never told your friends about.

The A-7 was a great aircraft. If you didn't know, they are now starting to do diecast (1/72 Scale) of this bird.. They are doing the Navy versions now, but there will be the USAF/ANG version coming.. Here are 2 versions of the "Test Shots" of this diecast..