It had a long loiter time for its size, compared to much heavier subsonic or supersonic jets. The Skyraider had excellent maneuverability at low speed, and carried a large amount of ordnance over a considerable combat radius. The aircraft had distinctive large straight wings with seven hardpoints apiece. The low-wing monoplane design started with a Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone radial engine which was later upgraded several times. In his memoir The Lonely Sky, test pilot Bill Bridgeman described the routine yet sometimes hazardous work of certifying AD-1s fresh off the assembly line at a rate of two aircraft per day for delivery to the U.S.

The AD-1 was built at Douglas's El Segundo plant in Southern California. In December 1946, after a designation change to AD-1, delivery of the first production aircraft to a fleet squadron was made to VA-19A. The XBT2D-1 made its first flight on 18 March 1945, and the USN began evaluation of the aircraft at the Naval Air Test Center (NATC) in April 1945. Designed by Ed Heinemann of the Douglas Aircraft Company, prototypes were ordered on 6 July 1944 as the XBT2D-1. The piston-engined, propeller-driven Skyraider was designed during World War II to meet United States Navy requirements for a carrier-based, single-seat, long-range, high performance dive/ torpedo bomber, to follow on from earlier aircraft such as the Douglas SBD Dauntless, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver and the Grumman TBF Avenger. The jet powered A-10 Thunderbolt II was based on specifications for a modernized Skyraider with a heavy payload and good endurance. It was operated by the United States Navy (USN), the United States Marine Corps (USMC), and the United States Air Force (USAF), and also saw service with the British Royal Navy, the French Air Force, the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF), and others. The aircraft was nicknamed 'Spad', after the French World War I fighter. The Skyraider had an unusually long career, remaining in front-line service well into the Jet Age (when most piston-engine attack or fighter aircraft were replaced by jet aircraft) thus becoming known by some as an ' anachronism'. The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (formerly designated AD before the 1962 unification of Navy and Air Force designations) is an American single-seat attack aircraft in service from 1946 to the early 1980s, which served during the Korean War and Vietnam War.

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