The A-7 shares its DNA with the Vought F-8 Crusader, but it is not simply a Crusader with bombs. To meet the Navy’s VAL specification, Vought kept the F-8’s rugged carrier structure and general layout while shortening the fuselage, fitting a broader, thicker wing for low-speed lift and heavy loads, enlarging the internal fuel, and removing the afterburner entirely. The famous variable-incidence wing of the Crusader was retained in spirit but the airframe was optimised for stability at bombing speeds rather than agility.

Because so much was carried over from a proven design, Vought delivered a flying prototype barely 18 months after contract award — fast and cheap by any standard. That pragmatism defined the whole programme: the A-7 was never the most glamorous jet on the carrier deck, but it was reliable, easy to maintain, endlessly upgradable, and it hit what it aimed at.

Pilots who flew the A-7D/E often called its bombing system the finest of its era, and spoke of themselves as an “A-7 mafia” loyal to the type. The reason was the integrated nav/attack suite: an onboard digital computer fused inertial and Doppler navigation with radar ranging and projected it all through the HUD as a single, continuously updated aiming solution. Where other attack pilots relied on fixed sight settings and practised dive angles, the SLUF pilot could roll in from varied geometry and still put iron on target. One former Navy aviator likened the moving-map display to “Google Maps before there was Google Maps.”

The A-7A and A-7B used the Pratt & Whitney TF30, but the definitive A-7D and A-7E switched to the Allison TF41 — an American licence-built version of the British Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan. It was an unusual pedigree for a frontline U.S. combat aircraft, and it paid off: the non-afterburning turbofan delivered roughly 14,250–15,000 lbf of thrust with excellent specific fuel consumption, the quality that gave the SLUF its trademark range and loiter. Thrust figures vary between museum and reference sources, so treat the exact number as approximate.

The A-7 was procured as an affordable attack aircraft, and a late-1960s flyaway price is commonly cited around US$2.6–2.9 million — but that figure is approximate and varies by variant, year and how support costs are counted, so treat it as an order-of-magnitude guide rather than a hard number. No credible cost-per-flight-hour figure for the type appears in authoritative public sources, so we do not quote one. What is well documented is the operating philosophy: a single efficient turbofan and simple, robust systems made the SLUF relatively cheap to fly and maintain compared with twin-engine strike aircraft of its era.