Beautiful buccaneers, in their last days
Brightly painted “Waldo” LTV A-7E Corsair IIs of Attackron 66 flying in tight formation above the Med 1983.
Via USNASM
VA-66 was then part of CVW-7 embarked on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) at the time and, due to the Beirut barracks bombing, Ike terminated her visit to Naples and departed for the eastern Mediterranean. The squadron operated in the vicinity of Lebanon until the latter part of November.
MIL-STD-2161(AS) changed these beautiful full-color schemes forever in April 1985 with the introduction of tactical paint schemes utilizing two tones of flat gray.
The Waldos themselves were diestablished 31 March 1987 as part of the move from A-7s to much shorter-legged F/A-18s. The Corsair was put out to pasture by the Navy in 1991– just after the First Gulf War.
Dwight D. Eisenhower is of course, still very much in operation.
Here is Ike a she is today in 360-degrees below: