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Sunday, February 22, 2015

V-519 The Great White Whale Part II

     An addition to the V-519 White Whale posts are these images of 156801. These are some scans of some older negatives that were not in the best shape of the V-519. These appear to be taken prior to the first flight. A couple of items of interest: the designation is still A-7E and most visibly the gold stripe is not painted on the vertical fin.


A nice image of the nose with the canopy open. VAHF Archives


 Side view of the V-519 after being towed from the hangar.  The gold fin stripe has not been added yet. VAHF Archive


Close up of the tail markings on 156801. VAHF Archives

A little better image of the aircraft with the A-7E designation painted on the fuselage above the Bureau number. VAHF Archives.

The White Whale, a fixture around the Vought plant for many, many years, was used in a number of test programs. Further posts will illustrate more of the different paint schemes carried by the aircraft over it's service life with Vought.

2 comments:

  1. Another interesting variation in the paint is the inclusion of Navy on the sides of the fuselage, or not. I was a production acceptance pilot at the Navy office at LTV during the YA-7H project and we had an ongoing discussion with the company about the Navy label. LTV was anxious to get the Air Force to buy two seat A-7s instead of the A-10, which was just coming to life at the time. They believed that the Air Force would be less receptive if the plane said Navy on the side. Imagine that.

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  2. Thanks for taking time to comment on the post. I guess those seemingly small details could cause the potential loss of a multi-million dollar contract. I might have a photo or two of you from the images that I have scanned from this time period. Thanks again!

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