"John Carrier" wrote in message
...
There is always restrictions on Carrier AC that are not on concrete
jumpers.

There are conditions when T/O weight and wind + density altitude conspire
to
make a very long stretch of concrete seem very short. As the A-7 was not
endowed with prodigious quantities of thrust, a heavy takeoff on a hot day
could be thrilling. Throw in a few thousand feet of field elevation and
you'd best enter your T/O tables in the big thick book.

Max gross is often a structural or wt/balance consideration w/o regard for
T/O issues. I was fortunate to never fly an aircraft that was relatively
underpowered ... a heavy A-7 was.

But for a 1950s type AC, it was quite handy and cheap. The alternative was
the A-4 for you Navy types and the F-5 for the AF types. I can't speak for
the A-4 but the F-5 made a fanstastic trainer but a really bad weapons
attack platform. Of course, there was the Spad that spanned three wars.