"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
John Carrier wrote:

The A-7's empty weight was a bit over 20K IIRC, certainly not 15 (even
in
the A-7A version ... the E was much heavier). The A-7 never lifted its
empty weight in stores. That would have taken it well over max gross.

Dorr's book lists the A-7A @ 15,037 lb. empty, MTOW 32,500 lb. A-7D is
listed
at 19,781 lb. empty, 42,000 lb. MTOW, essentially agreeing with Tom's data
from
Jane's. Typical bombload during Vietnam for Navy A-7s was about 6,000
lb.,
although during DS they tended to operate with only 4,000 lb. such as 4 x
Mk.
83 1,000 lb. bombs (plus an AIM-9 or two), as they'd removed two pylons to
decrease the drag. USAF A-7Ds tended to operate with 4-6,000 lb. in
Vietnam,
plus two tanks and a pod or two if going into a high-threat area. Navy
a-87s
in Vietnam tended not to carry tanks (they were closer to the targets)
unless
they were acting as buddy tankers, and they had internal ECM so didn't
need to
take up a pylon or two with that.

The army pukes think they know what things really are but in the end, they
don't know jack. Followed the Sluf for at least a decade. It was sad to
see it fly into Chanute one last time for a Static Display.