Vought F-7 Cutlass

[Cutaway]

Was this aircraft temprarily used in the Vietnam War?, There are rumours of an F-7D Cutlass refitted with J79 engines and an A-7 Corsair noseleg. If so it would be a great aircraft even for today.

[Bob Hudson]

Was this aircraft temprarily used in the Vietnam War?, There are rumours of an F-7D Cutlass refitted with J79 engines and an A-7 Corsair noseleg. If so it would be a great aircraft even for today.

 

I'm visiting my dad today and he worked on the Cutlass in the in avbout 1956-57 when he was a mechanic with VA-83, and spent another 10 years in the Navy after that. He says he never heard of them being reconfigured. In doing some checking around the web just now, it appears the Vietnam service rumor seems to have started in the April 2000 edition of Fine Scale Modeler and it sounds like it was April Fool's joke.

 

I remember seeing the Cutlasses sitting on the flight line at NAS Oceana and even to a 7-year-old they looked wild with that tall front landing gear. The pilots were something like 13 feet off the ground in the Cutlass. My dad said the pilots all began to get back aches from the shock during landing, so each pilot ended up getting a custom-fitted back brace that was worn over their flight suit.

 

[Hawk914]

In doing some checking around the web just now, it appears the Vietnam service rumor seems to have started in the April 2000 edition of Fine Scale Modeler and it sounds like it was April Fool's joke.

It was indeed started with the April 2000 ish of FSM.

 

I no longer have that rag, otherwise I'd scan it for you. But I found this image from the article on an RC flying forum:

 

 

 

It's a neat little 'what-if' idea, I'll say that.

 

 

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[Steindaddie]

Yeah, I saw that online RC forum and a re-worked Cutlass does sound like a flight of fantasy. I will say the J-79s would have been a big plus because the the F7U was often called the "Gutless Cutlass" for a good reason - it needed better engines. It started with decent enough performance, but the plane got loaded up as the years went by and the motors just weren't enough.

The Cutlass also was a fickle bird (in fairness, so were many other jets of the time) and with the F-8 Crusader coming out in the mid 50's and then the awesome F-4 Phantom, the F7U was rapidly eclipsed. It filled it's role for the time, but the navy realized it was an interim aircraft that would do okay enough until the planes they were really looking for were spawned by the advances made by such planes as the F7U itself.

 

Interestingly, the Cutlass was designed by Rex Beisel (a local boy) who also designed another radical looking plane, the F4U Corsair.