The Douglas A4D (A-4) Skyhawk makes its first flight from Edwards AFB, Calif., with company pilot Robert Rahn at the controls. Some 2,960 aircraft had been produced when the last aircraft was delivered in 1979. The Navy’s Blue Angels flew the A-4 Skyhawk II from 1974 to 1986. They were still flown by several foreign countries into the mid 1990s.
Over the past 20 years, military explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians have become very good at using high-tech tools like robots, communications jammers, smartphones, and next-generation bomb suits to disable improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in crowded urban environments. When it comes to a possible conflict with a near-peer adversary like…