A-7D/E Question (was Why no armor for soldiers ?)

Peter Stickney wrote:

snip

From the A-7D SAC Chart, Oct 1970:
Empty Weight: 19,733#
Basic Weight: 20,331#
Max Takeoff: 42,000#

Note that: Full internal fuel is 9263#,
Full External fuel is 7848# (4 300 U.S. Gallon cans)
While the weapons loadout charts aren't included, the loads for teh
example missions indicate that each wing pylon was good fpr
2000#. The performace section shows a typical load of 2 M117 750#
(nominal, actual weight was a hair over 800#) each on 4
pylons, or 2 pylons of bombs and 2 tanks.

The latter seems to have been typical in SEA. Dorr has photos of 354th TFW A-7Ds
with 8 Mk. 82s in a slant 4 (possibly a clearance issue with the tanks, if not gross
weight) on intermediate pylon MERs plus tanks on the I/Bs; or 6 x CBU-58s, three per
MER (same location as above) plus tanks. One shot shows the slant four Mk.82 load
(probably. It's an end-on in-flight shot where the bomb type is a bit hard to
define, showing a pair of A-7Ds flying on either wing of an F-111 leadship carrying a
full load of 24 bombs), plus probably single MK. 82s on the O/Bs; for a total of 10.
Oddly enough, for an a/c that was used entensively for CSAR Dorr has no shots of
A-7Ds carrying Mk.82 snakes.

[BTW, the weight of M117s seems to have changed quite a bit during production. The
F-105B & D SACs in the D&S volume shows them at 799 lb., while alll later SACs and
other sources show them at 823 lb.]

The '79 Jane's lists lists teh pylon ratings as 3500# each for the
wing outboars, and 2500# each for the 2 pairs of wing inboars, for a
total of 15,000#.

'82-'83 Jane's has it right (per a former A-7 jock I know): 3,500 for the the O/B and
Intermediate pylons, 2,500 for the I/Bs.

Given the SLUF's lack of Excess Power, I doubt that
a load of that size was ever considered.

Well, it's credited by Jane's with a t/o roll of 5,600 ft. @ MTOW, but that's
presumably in a far lower drag configuration than wall- -to-wall loaded MERs.
Besides 5,600 feet is 520 feet more than the F-105D requires with 16 x M117s (albeit
less than an F-105G at max. gross), so I think we can safely assume that an A-7D's
t/o from Korat at max. gross would make the F-105D look relatively spritely. In any
case, the A-7 handily met the requirement for doubling the A-4's payload/range.

Guy