A-37 Dragonfly and BAC Strikemaster

[Slater]

How similar were these two aircraft inn terms of overall capability?

[TheyJammedKenny!]

What do you mean by capability?  Are you looking for performance charts?  If you have both in hand, clean, as well with as the standard conventional loads, you could compare the two, and that would be your answer.  Their on-paper performance probably depends on a variety of factors, including outside air temperature, density altitude, and so forth.  Keep in mind that many of the A-37s were in-flight refuelable, which would have given them a theoretical edge over the Strikemaster in the AFAC role, because they could loiter.

[Doc72]

Looking at the basic data, it seems that the A-37 was more powerful than the Strikemaster. I had almost twice the engine power despite being only slightly heavier. Therefor, the initial rate of climb (a good indicator for overall agility) of the US aircraft was better.

However, what the customer wants or needs might be a different question. I can imagine that the A-37 (two engines vs one on the Strikemaster) was more expensive to operate and to maintain.

Of course, the A-37 was more much widely used, but, I guess, most export customers did not choose one type or the other. Rather, such COIN aircraft were mostly supplied as a part of larger military aid packages. New Zealand might be an exception here.

Another similar type would be the Italian Mb.326. Different cockpit arrangement, but same engine as the Strikemaster and commercially more successful.