The piston-engined, propeller-driven Skyraider was designed during World War II to meet United States Navy requirements for a carrier-based, single-seat, long-range, high performance dive/torpedo bomber, to follow on from earlier aircraft such as the Douglas SBD Dauntless, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver and the Grumman TBF Avenger.

The XBT2D-1 made its first flight on 18 March 1945, and the USN began evaluation of the aircraft at the Naval Air Test Center (NATC) in April 1945.

In his memoir The Lonely Sky, test pilot Bill Bridgeman notes that the plane engines had a sensitive carburetor but could keep pace with a Mustang in simulated dogfights over southern California.

The Skyraider had excellent maneuverability at low speed, and carried a large amount of ordnance over a considerable combat radius.

[9] The Navy AD series was initially painted in ANA 623 glossy sea blue, but during the 1950s, following the Korean War, the color scheme was changed to light gull grey and white (Fed Std 595 27875).

Initially using the gray and white Navy scheme, by 1967 the USAF began to paint its Skyraiders in a camouflaged pattern using two shades of green, and one of tan.

It was replaced beginning in the mid-1960s by the Grumman A-6 Intruder as the Navy's primary medium-attack plane in supercarrier-based air wings; however Skyraiders continued to operate from the smaller Essex-class aircraft carriers.

The AD-5 was significantly widened, allowing two crew to sit side-by-side (this was not the first multiple-crew variant, the AD-1Q being a two-seater and the AD-3N a three-seater); it also came in a four-seat night-attack version, the AD-5N.

[11] On 2 May 1951, Skyraiders made the only aerial torpedo attack of the war, hitting the Hwacheon Dam, then controlled by North Korea.

[13] On 16 June 1953, a USMC AD-4 from VMC-1 piloted by Major George H. Linnemeier and CWO Vernon S. Kramer shot down a Soviet-built Polikarpov Po-2 biplane, the only documented Skyraider air victory of the war.

On 26 July 1954, two Douglas Skyraiders from the aircraft carriers USS Philippine Sea and Hornet shot down two Chinese PLAAF Lavochkin fighters off the coast of Hainan Island while searching for survivors after the shooting down of a Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 Skymaster airliner three days previously.

Skyraiders from Constellation and Ticonderoga participated in the first U.S. Navy strikes against North Vietnam on 5 August 1964 as part of Operation Pierce Arrow in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, striking against fuel depots at Vinh, with one Skyraider from Ticonderoga damaged by anti-aircraft fire, and a second from Constellation shot down, killing its pilot, Lieutenant Richard Sather.

[20][21] During the war, U.S. Navy Skyraiders used their cannon to shoot down two Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 jet fighters.

The first, on 20 June 1965 by Lieutenant Clinton B. Johnson and Lt. (jg) Charles W. Hartman III of VA-25,[22] was the first gun kill of the Vietnam War.

On the night of 29 August 1964, an A-1E Skyraider was shot down and the pilot killed near Bien Hoa Air Base; it was flown by Capt.

The third A-1 was shot down on 31 March 1965 piloted by Lt. (jg) Gerald W. McKinley from the USS Hancock on a bombing run over North Vietnam.

[26] Col. Oscar Mauterer ejected from his A-1 after taking heavy enemy fire while providing cover for a damaged friendly aircraft on February 15, 1966.

The Skyraider in Vietnam pioneered the concept of tough, survivable aircraft with long loiter times and large ordnance loads.

These were reduced during the period of Vietnamization from 1968 to 1972, as the U.S. began to supply the South Vietnamese with more modern close air support aircraft, such as the A-37 Dragonfly and Northrop F-5, and at the beginning of 1968, only three of its squadrons were flying A-1s.

In 1997, it was acquired by the U. S. Army Center of Military History before it was restored and put on display at the National Museum of the USAF in 2022 (painted as 52–139738).

The Skyraiders had only a short career in Algeria, but they nonetheless proved to be the most successful of all the ad hoc counter-insurgency aircraft deployed by the French.

[40] They were heavily involved in the civil war in Chad, at first with the Armée de l'Air, and later with a nominally independent Chadian Air Force staffed by French mercenaries.

The French frequently used the aft station to carry maintenance personnel, spare parts and supplies to forward bases.

In Chad they even used the aft station for a "bombardier" and his "special stores" – empty beer bottles – as these were considered as non-lethal weapons, thus not breaking the government-imposed rules of engagement, during operations against Libyan-supported rebels in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

[citation needed] Data from McDonnell Douglas aircraft since 1920 : Volume I[43]General characteristics Performance Armament The A-1 Skyraider received various nicknames including: "Spad" and "Super Spad" (derived from the aircraft's AD designation, its relative longevity in service and an allusion to the "Spad" aircraft of World War I), "Able Dog" (phonetic AD), "the Destroyer", "Hobo" (radio call sign of the US Air Force's 1st Air Commando/1st Special Operations Squadron), "Firefly" (a call sign of the 602nd ACS/SOS), "Zorro" (the call sign of the 22nd SOS), "The Big Gun", "Old Faithful", "Old Miscellaneous", "Fat Face" (AD-5/A-1E version, side-by-side seating), "Guppy" (AD-5W version), "Q-Bird" or "Queer Bird" (AD-1Q/AD-5Q versions), "Flying Dumptruck" (A-1E), "Sandy" (the 602nd ACS/SOS call sign for Combat Search And Rescue helicopter escort), and "Crazy Water Buffalo" (South Vietnamese nickname).