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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Persian Gulf Combat Aircraft--The A-4 Skyhawk
Message-ID: <1990Oct15.033744.12715@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Oct 90 03:37:44 GMT
References: <1990Oct8.030359.11680@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct8.220810.7180@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct10.000352.29743@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct11.050750.29021@cbnews.att.com>
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: jabusch@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Jabusch)
>Beg to differ... the A-4 Skyhawk is still produced in Singapore, with
>new avionics and engines, and some underlying airframe mods, and will
>continue to be produced for quite some time...

Um, what do you mean by "produced"?  The Singapore folks are *refitting*
existing Skyhawks, not building new ones.  The Douglas production line
closed permanently some time ago, and there has never been any other.

>Any pilot who's flown both the A-4 and the Harrier will argue with your
>second point.  The Harrier is far from being as agile at the Skyhawk,
>and has a smaller payload.

Agility I can't comment on.  As for payload, you have to be careful which
version you are comparing; *current* Harriers (AV-8B) do indeed have payload
capacity similar to that of late-model Skyhawks, last I looked.  (And the
early Harriers are comparable to the early Skyhawks.)
-- 
"...the i860 is a wonderful source     | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
of thesis topics."    --Preston Briggs |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry