This latest CD from Aero Research covers the Douglas A-3 Skywarrior. This is a plane with which I spent my early USN years so I was pleased to see a disc dedicated to this aircraft being released. The Skywarrior was one of those planes that only served with the US and specifically the US Navy, though some were seconded to the Army and civil entities for use as research platforms as the A-3 was able to haul a predigous amount of equipment.

The disc itself contains 174 images in 340 MB of disc space, making it one of the largest CDs in Aero Research's ever expanding library. Not surprisingly, there are quite a few black and white photographs included. Each of the images has as much information on the image as is available in terms of unit, serial, location, date and so on.

A rather large number of the images are from VQ-1, VQ-2, as well as various test units like PMTC. There are also quite a few of the aircraft sporting civil registration as it was being used by Raytheon and others to test various electronics. I also found that about 15% of the images were of the EKA-3B variant with others being the standard bomber and the KA-3, which operated with the reserves for several decades.

The image quality ranges from fair to excellent. It also includes a number of in flight photos.  It my sound like hyperbole, but if you are a fan of the this aircraft, then you really must add this CD to your collection.

Thanks to Aero Research for the review CD.

December 2014

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