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I'm pretty sure that this was not development and qualification of the Skyhawk's ability to drop torpedoes but development and qualification of high-speed/altitude carry and drop of the torpedo itself. The A4D-1s were not in great demand after the subsequent variants became available but were useful for test scenarios like this. (Note that 137818 was the seventh A4D-1 produced and a Douglas flight test article so it was probably not suited to even a training role.)A torpedo attack on a surface ship would have been inadvisable relative to the use of other weapons (because of the speed of the torpedo relative to the ship, a successful attack requires the simultaneous drop of a spread of torpedoes so the ship can't avoid them all). I vaguely remember discussion about the use of the A4D as a pouncer in an ASW application (some ASW carriers deployed with a detachment of Sidewinder-armed A-4s for fighter cover) but the torpedo is not listed as an ordnance option on early A4D SACs.
I'm pretty sure that this was not development and qualification of the Skyhawk's ability to drop torpedoes but development and qualification of high-speed/altitude carry and drop of the torpedo itself. The A4D-1s were not in great demand after the subsequent variants became available but were useful for test scenarios like this. (Note that 137818 was the seventh A4D-1 produced and a Douglas flight test article so it was probably not suited to even a training role.)
A torpedo attack on a surface ship would have been inadvisable relative to the use of other weapons (because of the speed of the torpedo relative to the ship, a successful attack requires the simultaneous drop of a spread of torpedoes so the ship can't avoid them all). I vaguely remember discussion about the use of the A4D as a pouncer in an ASW application (some ASW carriers deployed with a detachment of Sidewinder-armed A-4s for fighter cover) but the torpedo is not listed as an ordnance option on early A4D SACs.
