Corsair with more:

A-7 Plus
T
ake a successful, proven aircraft that
is popular with its pilots, improve it
even more, and you will have an
outstanding winner by anybody's stan-
dards. LTV, based at Dallas, Texas, is
about to do just that, turning the A-7
Corsair II into what is now called (after
several name changes) the A-7 Plus.
The original 1960s US Navy require-
ment for a single-seat, carrier-based light
attack aircraft (VA-L), stipulated t hat it
should be developed from an existing
aircraft to speed delivery and keep costs
down. LTV' s study was based on the F-8
Crusader, and two design teams were set
up; the Blue Team to revamp the F-8 and
a parallel Red Team to conduct its own
studies, criticise Blue's design, and gener-
ally play devil's advocate. It worked, and
in March 1964 the Navy chose LTV to
build the VA-L, later dubbed A-7 Corsair
II, which made its first flight on September
27, 1965, 25 days ahead of schedule.
The A-7 Corsair is being re-
engined and updated to fulfil
the US Air Force's close air
support, battlefield air inter-
diction role. Mike Gaines
reports from Dallas on
Vought's thoughts.
The Navy' s A-7A, B, and C-models were
powered by Prat t & Whitney TF-30s
which produced 13,4001b thrust and,
initially, were dogged by problems of
steam ingestion from catapults. When the
A-7 was adopted by the US Air Force the
engine was changed to the Allison TF-41
Above The A-7 Plus will be capable of day/night
bad weather operation
(a licence-built version of the Rolls-Royce
Spey) which produced 14,2501b thrust
(15,0001b thrust for the Navy A-7E).
In Vietnam the Navy and Air Force
A-7s handled the "low and dirty" jobs of
very close air support, strafing, Sam and
AAA suppression, interdiction of roads,
rail-links and bridges, as well as high- and
medium-level bombing. They even
conducted low-level minelaying in
Haiphong harbour. The Corsair was called
t he Little Hummer initially. Other
soubriquets were Sluf (short little ugly
f---er) and Supersluf.
, Ling-Temco-Vought built 1,545 A-7s in
all, and they have flown around 100,000
corribat sorties with the US Navy and US
Air Forcemainly in Vietnam, but also in
Grenada, Lebanon, and Libya. In the US
Navy the "Sluf' is now being replaced by
the F-18 Hornet, and the US Air Force's
regular A-7 units are now dwindling, but
the type is still flown by the Air National
FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 22 August 1987 21
It is likely that the A-7 Plus will be in service until 2010
Fin cap
Augmented flaps
Lift dump spoilers
Forward stretch
Cockpit changes
HUD
Modified aft section
Radome modification
Airspeed system
Above The modifications needed to make an A-7 Plus, the "Lana" mods, are in blue. Below The
A-7 Plus looks more like an F-8 Crusader than a Sluf. Opposite How Vought will run its A-7 Plus
production line at Dallas
Guard to great effect.
The A-7s in USAF service were largely
replaced by the Fairchild A-10 Thunder-
bolt in the close-air-support role. But in
1984 it became apparent that the A-10
would need replacing in the mid-to-late
1990s, and would need supplementing,
until it was replaced, by another faster
aircraft. So the requirement was born for
a close air support/battlefield air inter-
diction (CAS/BAI) aircraft, and in early
1985 the USAF put out an official
CAS/BAI Request for Information (RFI)
for a low-cost aircraft (based on an in-
service type) with high speed, heavy
warload, and the ability to deliver accurate
weaponry around the clock in bad
weather. Four proposals came back from
industryNorthrop' s F-20 Tigershark,
the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting
Falcon, the McDonnell Douglas/British
Aerospace AV-8 Harrier, and the A-7
Corsair from LTV.
The USAF chose the Corsair as the
CAS/BAI winner, and the plan is to
convert 337 Air National Guard A-7D and
A-7K (two-seaters) to A-7 Plus config-
uration. The Guard shares the CAS/BAI
role with the USAF and assigns three A-7
units to the Rapid Deployment Force. It
also has to reinforce Europe, so anything
that cuts down the requirement for airlift
capacity, improves field performance, and
enhances bad-weather capability can only
be good news to detachment planners, and
the A-7 Plus design bears these criteria
in mind. Jim Gilbert, the A-7 Plus
programme manager, says "It' s a no-
yellow-gear aircraft. The number of C-141
Starlifters needed to deploy an A-7 Plus
squadron is cut by 53 per cent over
the number currently needed for an
A-7 unit."
To provide the higher speed, heavier
warload and better combat. radius called
for by the CAS/BAI role it was necessary
to change the Allison TF-41 for a more
modern afterburning turbofan. The A-7
Plus will be able to accept either the
General Electric F110 or the Pratt &
Whitney F100, but they are heavier, and
their adoption will cause a change in e.g.
This is put back within limits by instal-
ling a 29-5in-long section forward and
22 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 22 August 1987
an 18in aft plug to lengthen the fuselage.
The extra space is used to accommodate
more fuel and extra avionics.
But the longer fuselage adversely
affected the aircraft's longitudinal control
and stability. So a taller, more elegant fin,
like t hat of the A-7's ancestor, the F-8
Crusader, is fitted and wing leading-edge
strakes are added. This cures the tendency
for the nose to slice and depart on the
stall, and the tailplane is given 5 25'
anhedral (on the A-7D the tailplane has
525' dihedral). The longer body and
tailplane anhedral cut down the ground
clearance, so this is restored by canting
the aft fuselage upwards by 4..The nose
radome will be enlarged to take a bigger
antenna, and become more pointed to
improve flow.
The short-field requirements (part of
the overall problem of adopting the
austere basing concept) call for the A-7
Plus to be airborne in 3,000ft at its
planned maximum take-off weight of
46,0001b (the A-7D's MTOW is 42,0001b),
and to be able to land and stop in 2,500ft.
These specifications drove the wing
modifications, with lift spoilers and
augmented flaps. The new flaps consist of
automatic manoeuvring flaps to which a
5in-chord trailing-edge augmentor flap is
added for use on landing.
The A-7 Plus will land fairly hard in
short-field operations, but this is no prob-
lem because the carrier-qualified landing
gear can accept a teeth-rattling 26ft/sec
sink-rate naval arrival, whereas the
A- 7 Plus Perf ormance
Combat radius, high-low-high (n.m.)
Combat radius, tow-l ow-l ow (n.m.)
Maxi mum take-off wei ght (lb|
Maxi mum speed, clean/full load* (M)
Approach speed, clean, at 24, 0001b (kt)
Stall speed (kt)
Steady-state roll rate (deg/sec)
Positive/negative structure limits (g)
F100
670
290
46, 000
11/ 0- 98
122
106
190
7/ 6
* Pul l load assumed two Mk84 bombs, Lana pod, ECM pod and two AIM-9 Sidewinders plus
two AIM-9 Sidewinders and 50 per cent fuel.
F110
685
290
46, 000
1-4/ 1-02
125
109
190
7/ 6
50 per cent fuel. Clean assumes
requirement is only for a more gentle-
manly lOft/sec Air Force landing.
However, the landing gear will be modified
to improve maintainability. The A-7's
gear bays are cluttered and difficult to
work on.
The new engine, whichever is picked,
will have a higher fuel flow because of the
afterburner (which the TF-41 lacks), so
the fuel system needs modifying both for
higher supply rate and to feed the auxil-
iary power unit (APU), also new on the
A-7 Plus. Likewise, the electrical genera-
tion capacity needs to be higher, at
80k VA, rather t han the Corsair's 20kVA.
An aircraft-mounted accessory drive
(Amad) replaces the engine-mounted vari-
ant, thus cutting down on engine-change
times and improving its reliability by
being left in situ during the change. An
on-board oxygen generator system
(Obogs) is to be fitted, again cutting down
on support equipment (and thus airlift
requirements) and enabling longer endur-
ance to be achieved on air-refuelled ferry
flights.
Either of the USAF' s Alternate Fighter
Engines (AFE) could be fitted to the A-7
Plus. Allison also made an unsolicited
proposal to the USAF to upgrade the
TF-41' s performance to the AFE range by
fitting an afterburner, but the service
turned down this idea. Besides extra
performance, the AFEs provide inter-fleet
commonality which reduces both logistics
and cost.
The TF-41 in the A-7D produces a
maximum thrust of 15,0001b. The General
Electric F110-GE-100 produces 15,5001b
at military power and 27,8501b in full
afterburner. Like the F110, the Prat t &
Whitney F100-220 is a two-spool
turbofan, and it produces 14,3751b in
military power. Put the loud lever in the
left-hand corner and the F100 goes up to
23,8301b thrust. Both engines are
Control surfaces
augmented flaps
R/H shown, L/Hopp
Join and connect systems
A-7 Plus flow plan
FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 22 August 1987 23
extremely reliable, each having demon-
strated 4,000 tactical air cycles between
overhaul on bench tests. The new engine
will submit the old airframe to higher
stress and thus reduce its life, but Jim
Gilbert is confident that the A-7 still has
enough hours left. "The A-7 is lifed at
10,600hr, so if we are conservative and
halve it to 5,000hr and assume 170hr to
200hr a year of flying for the Guard, then
the aircraft will still last till 2010." The
Guard is to receive 337 A-7 Plus and, says
Gilbert, LTV is planning on a four-
aircraft-a-month conversion rate. "We
could do eight a month, but that' s up to
the customer and the dollars he has avail-
able."
The 337 aircraft is the worst case, but it
could go to 462, if the ex-Navy A-7s were
to come off the back burner. "Most Guard
squadrons have 24 aircraft. They will
probably take them down to say 28 or 20
each to give us a pool to get the
programme under way. I don' t think
they'll upgrade squadron by squadron."
Avionics
There are two levels of avionics systems
currently on offer for the A-7 Plus. One is
a cheaper variant called Fast Lana. The
"Fast" comes from the A-7 Plus engine
and airframe modifications for higher
penetration speed; the "Lana" from the
Low Altitude Night Attack pod system,
currently being fitted to 48 Guard A-7Ds
and six A-7Ks. Carried on the starboard
inboard pylon, the Lana pod is a Texas
Instruments AAR-49 forward looking
infrared kit, with a Singer Kearfott navi-
gation and weapon delivery computer
feeding a GEC Avionics wide-angle
headup display, where it is integrated with
the A-7's APQ-126 radar to give automatic
terrain following plus target acquisition
Both Greece and Portugal operate A-7s, which could be upgraded to A-7 Plus standard
and weapon aiming.
The alternative "full-up" avionics pack-
age would be much more in line with
present-generation thinking on combat
avionics systems and their presentation to
the pilot. The cockpit would have the
wide-angle Hud, but would also have full-
colour multifunction CRT displays for
navigation and weapon aiming, and liquid
crystal displays for systems monitoring.
LTV has long been seeking more power for the Corsair. This 1977 proposal is the V-529D, with two
16,000lb-thrust GE F404s. It did not progress beyond the drawing board
The full fit has yet to be frozen, but the
shopping list includes such goodies as
ALQ-165 aircraft self protection jamming
(ASPJ), Navstar and/or ring-laser gyro
INS, maps stored on compact digital video
disc for CRT presentation, Class II Jtids
(joint tactical information distribution),
and secure communications. All the space,
power, and equipment-cooling require-
ments have been designed with the full-up
version of the A-7 Plus in mind, so there
will be no problems in that field, whatever
variant is chosen.
Weaponry
The warload of the A-7 Plus will be
17,3801b, compared with the A-7D's
maximum of 15,0001b. The A-7 Plus will
have six underwing pylons and two fuse-
lage-side weapon stations each capable of
carrying a 5001b load. On the A-7
these stations are usually used to carry
AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. The
General Electric M60A-1 Vulcan 20mm
rotary cannon will be retained. Mounted
in the port side of the fuselage, the gun has
1,000 rounds of ammunition and select-
able firing rates of either 4,000 rounds/
min or 6,000 rounds/min. The A-7 is
cleared to carry most tactical weapons in
the USAF inventory, including the latest
laser-guided and imaging infrared
weapons. The A-7 Plus should be able to
navigate to the target at 200ft in bad
weather and then hit with 5mil accuracy.
The flyaway cost quoted by Vought for
each A-7 Plus is $6 2 million, including $3
million to $3 5 million for the engine, with
the rest going on avionics and airframe
modifications. The Fast Lana A-7 would
be marginally cheaper, at an estimated
$5-8 million unit flyaway cost. The Air
National Guard is scheduled to receive its
first A-7 Plus in 1991. D
21
FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 22 August 1987