Posted on 09/23/2014 1:00:09 PM PDT by blam
Christopher Harress, International Business Times
September 23, 2014
A-10 Warthog in Afghanistan upload.wikimedia.org
As the U.S. begins bombing ISIS targets in Syria with a campaign of airstrikes that started Monday, a venerable airplane that was almost sent to the scrapyard joins the fight. The Pentagon will send a dozen A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft and up to 300 airmen to the Middle East in early October, to help in the conflict against the Islamic State group, the Indiana National Guard said.
The deployment of the 40-year-old aircraft comes just four months after it was controversially saved from defense cuts by Congress, whose rationale for saving it was simple: Cutting it would lead to the deaths of U.S. servicemen on the ground.
Built originally by now-defunct Fairchild to destroy Soviet tanks in Europe, the A-10 survived the end of the Cold War thanks to its ability to fly low, carry lots of bombs and a large cannon, and help troops with close air support, which made it often invaluable in Afghanistan. But with defense cuts looming and the Afghan war winding down, the Thunderbolt seemed on the way out.
The aircraft, while favored by some Air Force top brass, was slated to be cut from the defense budget in early May, with potential savings of about $4 billion over a five-year period. The more than 300 A-10s in service would have been grounded.
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Please pardon my obscure reference to a quote from Planes Trains and Automobiles.
I just meant to say thanks for posting. Those birds are amazing and our enemies call them something like “death from above” it just figures that most of our feckless elected officials want to send them to the scrap heap. I think they are all fighting for the other side.
Pray for our brave pilots and troops.
The platform is in the process of retirement. . .drawdown. . .dozens of them are now in the boneyard at Davis-Monthan.
Use Google maps (Davis-Monthan). Start at SE of corner of S Kolb Blvd and E Irvington Rd. .browse South and East, North of the dirt road and South, too. . .you will see countless A-10s retired (mothballed) and dozens torn down to pieces-parts.
The jet was projected to be fully retired by 2030, then it was 2025. . .now, who knows.
Retiring a jet doesn’t mean on-line one day and gone the next. It is a long draw-down process as jets are taken off-line and then (supposedly) replaced by other platforms.
The A-10 is retiring now, bottom line, reducing its numbers each year.
Thanks.
It looks like the most effective parts of our military infrastructure are in drawdown, and being replaced by empty promises.
The platform is in the process of retirement. . .drawdown. . .dozens of them are now in the boneyard at Davis-Monthan.
I appreciate the clarification. Not all A-10’s are retired.
If you look up “can of woop ass” in the dictionary. . You see a picture of an A10.. that gun just does the “nasty” to ground targets...
if you have a ground force with no air cover. . And you sent mix of A10 and AC130!#?
The A-10 should have been called to arms when the caravans were headed south. This community organizer is late to the party and many people have been murdered because of his inaction. Like I posted earlier, the only reason for the strikes was a threat to the white house. Michelle probably got pissed and told him to get off his butt because her new clothes were targeted.
Give me some hot melt glue , tin snips and a few empty beer cans and I’ll have that hog airborne in an hour...
Now we all know it’s not the Air Force but the big companies that make the airplanes. Does anyone really need an iPhone6? Just wondering since I still use a 5 year old tracfone.
Probably just as well if the government has scrapped the A-10’s before SHTF.
Another Freeper the other day said in AFghan it was known as the Silent Death!
Leading a 4-ship to a live range in Germany, just about 15 miles West of the IGB (inner-Gernam Border). Full load of Mk-82’s, full load of 30MM, full load chaff/flare and jammers on. . .Attack was in trail formation, 20-sec between aircraft to avoid frag, I led and went to the hold point. Saw another A-10 arrive, then a third. . .then waited and waited for the fourth. I called No. 4 and asked, where are you? He said he was at the egress point. Wait. . .what? I counted two other jets at the egress point and had asked no. 3 to rock his wings. He did. Oh-oh. . .WHERE ARE YOU No. 4!? I radio’d. He said he was heading to the egress point, thought he over-shot as his INS dumped and it was cloudy and hazy and hard to find reference points.
Yikes, I asked what direction he was heading and he said “EAST.” I yelled; “TURN WEST NOW!” and I immediately left the egress point and headed East to find No. 2. As I was approaching the IGB I saw No. 2 cresting a small hill to the East, heading West, clearly in East Germany. Double-Yikes. Somehow he made in back across the border into West Germany and AWACS didn’t call us on it. . .whew.
Doing practice CAS with the Brits in the UK, did a simulated gun pass on the troops in the open, pulled up, rolled 135 degress, rolled out, re-masked low level and received immediate clearance for re-attack. Young and eager, I didn’t realize how low and slow I was and I immediately yanked around and did a re-attack and pulled off, rolled 135 degrees, rolled out and dumped the nose down to re-mask and looked over my should, looking for smoke trails from simulated SAMs. . .but then something didn’t feel right. . .I looked to the front and saw a windscreen full of trees and Brit soldiers running away from my upcoming impact point!!! Yanking back on the jet, still sinking. . .saw trees come up round me. . .felt the ground approaching. . .too low with a sink rate to eject, I PRAYED. . .slowly (it seemed), the jet climbed and I rolled 90 degrees and saw dust being kicked up by my whooshing by at VERY low level.
During Gulf War I, I was a ground FAC, calling in A-10 airstrikes/CAS, as well as lesser jets.
Worked a 4-ship of A-10’s on a bunker and it did the high-angle strafe things and that is when I saw from the ground the Fist of Gawd pound them into dust. . .awesome. Also was working a 4-ship of Hogs and we were pounding the piss out of Iraqi troops when a 2-ship of F-16’s showed up. . .five minutes playtime and two Mk084’s apiece. Great. Held the Hogs high and dry and passed GPOS coordinates to the F-16’s, one pass and they were out of gas and bombs and flew away and I brought the Hogs back to do man’s work.
I can go on. . .
The A10 was not derived from the P47 or A1
The P47 was designed in WW2 as a high altitude air superiority fighter.. that the reason it had a turbo supercharger... but is was found to excel in the ground support role..
A1 was a light attack dive bomber..fit the carrier force mission of small carrier born aircraft for attacking Sea and ground targets.
The A10 was from designed from the start as a ground force support ,heavily armored, tank buster.
The closest ww2 aircraft that I would compare it to original concept would be the Russian Sturmovik
They were probably from Willow Grove. They used to fly over my house around 10am. I miss them. The only planes and helos we see now are from McGuire/Dix/Lakehurst. If anyone is going home or heading out and you see some weird lady waving, that’s me.
The famous “GUN:”
Ever apply your brakes suddenly and the shoulder-harness of your seat-belt ‘locks’ up? Same thing happens when you pull the trigger on the 30MM. . .aircraft shakes like heck and for a brief moment (sec or less is all you hold the trigger otherwise you melt the barrels), the jet slows in an instant, not much but very quickly—like tapping the brakes, locking the shoulder harnesses.
Gawd. . .I only miss the jet when I talk about it. . . ;-)
Simple concept but lost on the accountants and spineless.
“Hmm - does the F-35 have manual control systems as an extra layer of redundancy? “
In a word, “no.”
I see. Apology for appearing like I was piling on. . .I wasn’t.
Cheers.
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