Douglas A-1 Skyraider - A Photo Chronicle

Frederick A. Johnson’s A-1 Skyraider: A Photo Chronicle celebrates an aircraft that arrived late to the piston-engine party, looked around at the jet age, and decided to carry on anyway with a propeller, a huge load of ordnance, and the calm self-belief of a machine too useful to be embarrassed. The A-1 Skyraider was not sleek futurism. It was a big, rugged, single-engine attack aircraft with the general air of a flying toolbox that had been issued opinions.

Designed for the US Navy at the end of the Second World War, the Skyraider missed its first intended war and then proceeded to make itself indispensable in the next ones, which is one way of handling bad timing. It served in Korea, Vietnam and beyond, hauling bombs, rockets, guns, fuel, rescue cover and whatever else could be persuaded to hang under its wings. While jets screamed about being modern, the Skyraider loitered, carried more, stayed longer, took punishment, and quietly made itself difficult to replace.

This photo chronicle gives the aircraft what it deserves: pictures, variants, markings, squadrons, details, operational flavour and a proper visual record of a machine that looked purposeful from every angle and delicate from none. The Skyraider was not a refined drawing-room aircraft. It was broad-shouldered, busy, practical and slightly agricultural, the sort of aeroplane that seemed less designed than forged after someone asked, “Can we attach more things to it?” and the answer came back, “Probably.”

Its Vietnam career gives the book much of its character. The A-1 flew close air support, rescue escort, special operations and the sort of low, slow, dangerous work that jets could admire from a safe emotional distance. It went into places where speed was not always the answer and staying power mattered more than looking futuristic. There is an irony here almost too tidy to resist: the old propeller aircraft, supposedly outclassed by modern jets, proved useful precisely because it could do what shiny supersonic machines often could not.

The Skyraider belongs to that beloved class of military hardware that wins affection by being homely, tough and absurdly competent. It was loud, smoky, heavily loaded and wonderfully unglamorous, which in aviation terms often makes for deep devotion. Nobody loves a machine like this because it is elegant. They love it because it kept turning up, carrying too much, staying too long, and bringing people home when the cleverer-looking aircraft had other appointments.

For aviation collectors, Vietnam air-war readers, US Navy and USAF enthusiasts, model builders, Schiffer completists, and anyone with a weakness for aircraft that look as if they could also plough a field in an emergency, this is splendid material. A photo chronicle is exactly the right format: no need to over-explain the Skyraider when you can simply show it sitting there covered in pylons, looking like it has come to settle an argument with gravity.

Good copy, as sold by Crappy Old Books. A solid Schiffer volume about a solid machine: propeller-driven, overburdened, stubborn, and deeply uninterested in whether the jet age had already sent invitations.

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