A-7 Corsair II at NAS Memphis, Millington, Tennessee
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This A-7 Corsair is sitting at Naval Air Station, NAS Memphis in Millington Tennessee

This is the A-7 Corsair located at NAS Lemoore in 1976
This is a picture of the A7 Corsair just before disassembly at Naval Air Station, NAS Memphis in Millington, Tennessee. Now located at the Bloomington Prairie Aviation Museum in Bloomington Illinois.  The photo on the left was taken at NAS Lemoore in the mid 1970's from VA-125 the Rough Raiders.

Esta es una foto de la A7 Corsair justo antes de desmontaje en la Naval Air Station, NAS Memphis en Memphis, Tennessee. Ahora se encuentra en el Museo de Aviacin de la pradera Bloomington en Bloomington Illinois. La foto de la izquierda fue tomada en NAS Lemoore a mediados de la dcada de 1970 de la VA-125 a los Raiders en bruto.

Vought A-7 Corsair II from VA-125.
A-7 Corsair II Recovery 
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   A-7 Corsair Exhibit Index  >>  A-7 Corsair Recovery.
The A7 Corsair II is one of the most successful light attack military aircraft ever made.  It was manufactured by LTV Vought.  The A-7 is 46' long 16' high and has a wingspan of 38' 9"  It has an empty weight of 19,500 lbs. and a max weight of 42,000 lbs.  the A7 has one Allison TF-41 turbojet engine, with no afterburner, producing 15,000 lbs. of thrust.  The Corsair has a top speed of 602 kts. and a max range of 2280 nm.
Please note:  The specs on this page are for only one version of this plane. Different Versions may have different specs
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This is the a7 just taken out of storage
This A-7 Corsair II was located at NAS Memphis located in Millington, Tennessee, about thirty miles north of Memphis.   NAS Memphis was called NATTC, Naval Air Technical Training Center.
 
 
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When you see an airplane in a museum, you only see part of the story.  This exhibit is designed to give you the whole story of where the plane came from and how much work was involved in getting the airplane from the military storage area to the museum.

The first step is to find an airplane that is available for museum use.  You must have a lot of connections and specialized knowledge to do this.  This work was done by Mr. Chuck Schumacher who is one of the most knowledgeable and nicest persons that you will ever meet. 

The second step is to get permission to acquire the airplane.  Again, you mush have the proper connections and specialized knowledge for this.

The third step is to make arrangements for disassembly, transportation, and reassembly of the aircraft.  Chuck used an aeronautical college to supply the manpower to disassemble the airplane, in this case the plane was located in Millington Tennessee at NAS (Naval Air Station) Memphis.  Using college students gave the students the great opportunity to learn about military aircraft while giving the museum a enthusiastic volunteer force for the labor.   The following gives a little information about the airplanes history.

After a plane has been taken out of service it is placed into storage.  This exhibit covers the history of the A-7 and its recovery and restoration at the Prairie Aviation Museum, located in Bloomington, Illinois.  This A-7 Corsair II jet fighter was originally attached to VA-125, the Rough Raiders, stationed at NAS Lemoore near Lemoore California which is about 32 miles south of Fresno.   VA-125 was a training squadron using the A-7A and A-7B aircraft built by the Vought Aircraft Company located in Texas.  Once being attached to VA-125,  new pilots, fresh out of primary flight training, were now trained in the type of aircraft that they will fly in the fleet operational squadrons.  This training was on the flight characteristics of the A-7, use of its specialized avionics ( Aviation Electronics) and weapons systems, bombing procedures, combat maneuvers and low level tactics in the mountains, not to mention, of course, emergency procedures and fleet operations.    The A-7 was taken out of service in 1980 and replaced by the F/A-18 Hornet. 

The photo above was taken at NAS Memphis in Millington, Tennessee 

Webmasters Note:  This A-7 project was a special interest to me because I was attached to VA-125 as an Avionics Technician and worked on this exact airplane from 1974 to 1977.  It's like visiting an old buddy from years ago.  I would like give special thanks to the people of the Prairie Aviation Museum for allowing me to show these pictures on the website and giving me permission to work on preservation and restoration of this aircraft.

This exhibit is brought to you with special thanks to:
Graham Eich who did a tremendous amount of work scanning the pictures and as a liaison between myself, C. Jeff Dyrek, and the Prairie Aircraft Museum.
Norm Wingham ,   President and founder of the Prairie Aviation Museum.
Chuck Schumaker ,the person in charge of recovery and restoration of the A-7.  Chuck is also responsible for the recovery of the A-7 located at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.


8/21/2007

I really enjoyed reading the saga about the A-7A Corsair how you got one from the Navy, restored it and put it in your museum.  Brought back many memories for me. I was an AZ with VA-37 (later VFA--37) Raging Bulls from 1989 to 1992.  I did one Med cruise with the Bulls on the Forrestal just prior to Desert Shield. I loved the A-7 too, and I just didn't believe the F/A-18 Hornet was as good. Anyway I really enjoyed reading about the restoration but I just have to correct something I read. That is, A-7's from the 1980's had side numbers in the 300 and 400 series. Our planes had 300 series and our sister squadron (VA-105) had 400 series. Also our A-7E side number 300 was referred to as Bullnuts. She was also the CAG's plane, as all the planes with 00 in the Air Wing were his. The 500 series was on the A-6's.  Thanks for bringing back memories and I hope to visit your museum one of these days. Take care and hope to see you soon  Robert Gubanski, AZ2, disabled.

 

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