From the webmaster.  I worked on the A-7's while stationed at NAS Lemoore in Lemoore California.  This was the largest attack base on the west coast.  I was attached to VA-125 the Rough Raiders which flew the A-7A & B then Transferred to VA-192 the World Famous Golden Dragons aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.  They made a movie about VA-192 starring William Holden and Mickey Roonie called "The Bridges at Tokyo Ri"  It's interesting to see the difference between the A and E models of this plane.  The airframe is the same but nothing else is even closely the same.  The E model had a different engine and different Avionics with everything in a different place.  As of the late 70's, every bombing derby in which an A-7 entered into competition, the A-7 took first place.  This was regardless of the high tech components on the other airplanes.  (The A-7 Corsair II was a very low tech, seat of the pants bird)  While we were on a West Pacific Cruise aboard the USS Kitty Hawk we beat the squadrons from the USS Midway in bombing competition.  This was previously unheard of because the Midway was stationed in Japan and was always on the top of the training, where the Kitty Hawk spent most of it's time in San Diego and only had a year of fleet training at the most for any given crew.  I believe that this accomplishment was because of the efforts of one man, AQ-2 Dale Shepherd.  Dale was a perfectionist.  The major problem with being on a ship for extended periods was boredom.  The equipment that you worked on rarely broke, you didn't have anything to do but sit.  Dale worked on the APQ-116 Fire Control Radar System.  To prevent boredom, Dale spoke to the Commanding officer of VA-192, Commander Joseph Cole, and requested that he take one airplane out of service at a time and groom the entire weapons delivery system aligning the gun sights and the radar's fire control system to get the most accurate lock-ons.  I don't believe Dale received any awards for this, but he should have.  Placing this note on this page is my way for saying Thanks to Dale.  C. Jeff Dyrek, webmaster.