Scramble Magazine 428 - January 2015 Back Issue

At the start of this new year, you can read about:

- Hellenic Corsairs
2014 witnessed another retirement of an iconic Cold War
era fighter type. For at least a decade the Elliniki Polemiki
Aeroporia (EPA, or Hellenic Air Force) was the last air force to
operate the Ling Temco Vought A-7 Corsair II. On 17 October
2014, the EPA retired their beloved Corsairs in a, by any
means, honourable way with an event at Araxos. This, and a
publication by the EPA covering the service history of the A-7
in Greek service, is enough reasons to mark the unfortunate
but inevitable retirement of this remarkable aircraft!

- Fast and Furious
Now that Hawker’s famous (Sea) Fury design has reached
its 70th birthday, the time has come to shed a light on the
European survivors of the type.

- Diamondbacks Phantoms
One of the US Navy’s oldest fighter squadrons, VF-102 ‘Diamondbacks’,
was originally established at NAS Jacksonville
(FL) on 1 July 1955. The unit’s namesake, the Diamondback, is
a kind of rattlesnake found in the southern part of the USA.
Early VF-102 equipment included the F2H Banshee and F4D
Skyray, but the latter’s successor was the McDonnell Douglas
F-4 Phantom. In an article, we focus on VF-102’s use of the
legendary Phantom.