Corsairs, old and new

7 July 1967: American Aerospace Museum founder Lynn Garrison in “Blue Max” (N693M), his privately owned ex-Aéronavale Vought F4U-7 Corsair (BuNo 133693) leading a trio of brand-new LTV A-7A-4a-CV Corsair IIs (BuNo 153168, 153174, 153175) of the similarly brand new U.S. Navy Attack Squadron VA-147 “Argonauts” over NAS Lemoore before the squadron’s first deployment to Vietnam aboard USS Ranger (CVA-61). Talk about the Vinn diagram between jet stall speed and prop max speed Of the above aircraft, Garrison’s old-school bent-wing bird would be destroyed in a crash near Chula Vista on 10 May 1987, with two fatalities. However, the newer birds, as noted by Baughner, were all lost within 15 months of the above image. The CAG bird, 153175, NE-300, suffered an engine failure over the Gulf of Tonkin on Halloween 1968. The pilot ejected and was rescued. Meanwhile, BuNo 153174 was written off after an accident on 11 February 1968 and 153168 had a similar fate on 28 September 1968.