A4 Skyhawk Aeronavale

[beowulf]

been a while since i posted here,......my modelmaking took a turn and i dont do many whiffs any more but i did this on another forum for a 'shelf of doom' GB...........airfix kit that i started but couldnt finish cos i couldnt bare to do a light grey USN scheme

in the early 60s the French Navy had two brand new carriers.....the Foch and the Clemenceau.......to serve as fighters they bought 42 brand new Vought F-8 Crusaders......these proved to be unpopular, having the same incident rate that the US Navy had.....within 5 years they had lost 11 aircraft to landing accidents, on land as well as on carriers, including one that required the Foch to be docked for 6 months for repairs. They decided to replace the Crusaders with another aircraft but it was finding something suitable and within the budget ....Phantoms were too big and expensive but Sea Vixens were considered until the US Navy stepped in with an offer..........they would buy back the French Crusaders to help replace the ones they had lost and then sell new A-4 Skyhawks to the French.....this turned out to be a pretty good deal as the A-4 was cheaper to buy and operate, being smaller took up less room on deck than the F-8, and also had a secondary bomber role.......downside was it was less capable as a fighter

the Skyhawk proved popular, taking part in many operations in the coming years until both carriers were retired, indeed when the Foch was sold to Brazil they also bought all the Skyhawks the French had, which were then modernised and upgraded and would go on to serve for another 10+ years

[Dizzyfugu]

The Aéronavale actually evaluated the Skyhawk, but decided "France first" and procured the Étendard. I did such an early A-4 a while ago, too, in marketing colors how it might have appeared during these trials. 


1:72 A4D-2F 'Skyhawk' prototype; aircraft '01' during the Aéronavale (French Navy) evaluation and weapon trials on board of 'Arromanches' (R 95), mid 1958 (Whif/modified Airfix kit) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr

[beowulf]

but they wouldnt have been able to buy the Etendard..........Dassault never existed...........Marcel Bloch (who formed Dassault after WW2 in the real world) died in Buchenwald concentration camp.......the Germans put him there as he refused to cooperate with them and the Vichy Government (in the real world he survived and changed his name to Dassault which was his brothers wartime nom de guerre)

[NARSES2]

I like that   

[AeroplaneDriver]

Cant go wrong with an A-4 Whif!!!  I did an Aeronavale one too a year or two back.  Love yours!

[Captain Canada]

If you guys like the A-4 so much start doing mor in RCN colours lol. Your French version looks great in those colours, and nice little story makes sense. Nice one !

[Joe C-P]

That am much pretty.