That’s because the Pentagon needed a plane that could fly low and hover for protracted periods over a battlefield—a niche that jets couldn’t fill. In other words, the A-1 was America’s original Close ...

First flown in 1945, it served through the Korean and Vietnam Wars ... an anachronism that refused to die, the Douglas A-1 Skyraider was the U.S.’s last-ever prop-driven fighter/attack aircraft.