During the 1960s and 1970s military aerospace companies like Vought, or Ling-Temco-Vought, or Douglas, or McDonnell-Douglas…well let’s just say the companies that built military aircraft produced promotional films for their products. Some of these films were impressive and many were outstanding- especially those that featured aircraft that could “sell” themselves. We’ve brought you a few films like these before. Vought produced their promo film, “In Corsair Tradition”, when their latest A-7E Corsair II had recently entered service. The film was uploaded to YouTube by PeriscopeFilm and features Vought’s Short Little Ugly…Fellow. SLUF for short.
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Owing some of their design characteristics to Vought’s F-8 Crusader series of supersonic carrier-based air superiority fighters, Navy SLUFs served for about 24 years. From Vietnam to Desert Storm they were in the thick of every one of the Navy’s engagements during their service. The A-7E was powered by the more powerful Rolls-Royce Spey (license-built by Allison as the TF-41) engine used in the United States Air Force’s (USAF’s) A-7D variant. The E also benefitted from improved avionics and targeting systems as well as increased firepower thanks to the adoption of the same M61 Vulcan 20 millimeter six barrel rotary cannon as the one present in the A-7D.
