Flying the A4 Skyhawk with the Royal Australian Navy

Guest column by Peter (‘Purps’) Greenfield

We were young, full of testosterone and living the dream. The year was 1976 and I was selected to fly the McDonnell Douglas A4-G Skyhawk fighter off the RMAS Melbourne, Australia’s only aircraft carrier.

All of us had flown the CAC Aermacchi MB-326H jet trainer, known affectionately as the ‘Macchi’, and licence-built in Australia by Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, hence the ‘CAC’ prefix. The Macchi was fast and fun to fly, but as a…