A depiction of two Douglas A-4E Skyhawk light attack aircraft from the VA-56 "Champions" flying past the "Big E". Nicknamed "Heinemann's Hot Rod" after the designer, the A-4 was designed to replace the A-1 piston driven aircraft previously used in the role. The compact A-4 came in under the Navy's weight requirements, and in addition, it's choice of a Delta under-wing allowed for a small wingspan' doing away with the necessity of folding wings. Two 20mm cannons and five hard points for mounting ordnance made this a lethal little package. It's easy to see why the Skyhawk garnered its many nicknames: "Scooter", "Kiddiecar", "Bantam Bomber", and "Tinker Toy Bomber". "Heinemann's Hot Rod" aptly covered its agile performance characteristics. The A-4 served ably in the Vietnam War, the Yom Kippur War in the mideast, and the Falklands conflict. There are still some estimated thousands in service in various air services around the world. In one of its many roles, the A-4 pioneered the concept of Buddy air refueling; using aircraft of similar characteristics to refuel one another, thereby eliminating the use of large air tankers. In my mind, this little beauty always seemed like the sports-car variety jet and "Scooter" was aptly descriptive. (This is an older piece with an updated camera angle.) A-4E Skyhawk: This piece was done so long ago that I am pretty hazy on the provenance of the models, but I think the A-4 is a free model from TF3DM with some re-texturing, and Epici's LWr01 low poly enemy soldier with cobbled together flight gear. My thanks to the modeler, this is an beautifully crafted model and a pleasure to use. Thank you! The "Big-E" USS Enterprise: I'm not entirely sure, but I believe I used AliceFromLake's excellent USS Enterprise (CVN-65) model, no longer available here on Rendo. F-4 Phantoms and E-1 Tracer: Models from sketchup warehouse A-3 Skywarrior: From the defunct site Gunpoint-3d Various bits: well, thanks to the various sources lost in the shroud of time Models modified in C4d; posed, composed, lighted, textures enhanced, and rendered in Vue6Infinite; touch-ups and any postwork in PS Cs3