Posted on 08/26/2014 4:58:24 AM PDT by servo1969
Pierre Sprey is one of the original designers of the A-10 Warthog during the 1970s. He provides insight into why the aircraft is so loved by ground troops in the military, and why its recent retirement from Air Force operations is so hotly debated.
(Excerpt) Read more at wimp.com ...
All of the equipment and tooling used for construction of the A10 is also destroyed.
We have no wisdom.
I don’t know why we insist on shooting ourselves in the foot like this.
I saw a couple of those in the air while working east of Nellis AFB. Impressive aircraft, incredibly nimble in the sky. My first thought was “I’m sure glad they aren’t hunting me!”
Just the fact that our enemies fear the plane so much is more than enough reason to keep it.
Why get rid of them?
Easy- There’s no profit to be made on keeping the perfect plane we already have. We need a new plane with new training classes and new programs and new infrastructure and new spare parts production and...
Make no mistake- they’d retire and replace our B-52s and C-130s if they could convince enough people to do it.
loved the ravens logo on the a-10 in the video...
loved the flight simulator game a-10 tank killer...
hate the fact they are scrapping this friend of infantry.
i hope it is because we are arming grunts with laser weaponry.
but i doubt it.
t
Obama is just protecting all those tanks, trucks, and humvees he made sure went to ISIS.
Much of the higher up brass dislike the warthog due to it not being, in their eyes, as “sexy” as an F15 or F16.
The previous “retirement” of the A10 and attempt to replace it with the F16 was reasoned this way: A10 is designed to survive hits, F16 is designed to avoid them.
Anyone with a brain can see the obvious problems with this as the F16 isn’t designed to survive a ground CAS environment.
Neither is the F35...
Sooooo, the same idiocy, repeated twenty years on.
Simply my favorite airplane since WWII.
We were stopping for fuel on our way to Cabo at some airport in California (IIRC) in my sister’s Citation and the field was an A-10 base. they were doing takeoffs and landings in pairs. It was a real treat.
I hear that at night, from the pilot’s perspective, firing that gatling gun is like firing a laser.
There’s another interview with this designer available on the net...not much different.
It’s hard to argue with literally any aspect of the realization of the design objectives of this airplane....unless your goal is to produce a dozens-of-millions-of-dollars-per-copy edifice of complexity. This inexpensive, 40-year-old plane turned out exactly how they wanted it and it achieved (AFAIK) every design objective, absolutely beautiful in its ugliness and ruthless in its effectiveness. We should be building them or an upgraded equivalent today.
Davis-Mothan is full of A-10 airframes and Boeing had a contract to rebuild the wings of active A-10s so we don’t need the original tooling.
There is no other jet in the U.S. inventory that can do close air support like the A-10. To compare the F-35 JSF to an A-10 is utter nonsense. The F-35 is totally unsuited for the CAS mission and would become a big, expensive, smoking hole in the ground if it tried to do CAS.
The A-10 embodies the American spirit in the form of a “can of whoopass”. Need I say more?
“Sooooo, the same idiocy, repeated twenty years on.”
Correct but you are off by about twenty years. I was with Fairchild, although in another division, when the aircraft was being developed (early 1970s). The Air Force actually forced a fly-off against the A-7. They just couldn’t stand the thought of adding a ‘slow’ aircraft to their inventory. They even tried to rig the results in favor of speed. Luckily the Army horned in and insisted that battlefield support actually be the measuring stick.
Another interesting fact - bad weather operations. The West Germans wanted 1002-1500 to stop a rapid invasion by the Russians, but the crummy weather concerned them. Fairchild built a two seat version especially for night and bad weather operations. I believe it is still parked in a desert bone yard.
The Germans loved it and all was a go until America made its first major mistake of the 20th Century. Peanut Carter was elected and decided that “America should stop being the arms dealer for the world.” Told the Germans ‘no’ and actually reduced the US order (if memory serves me correct, something like 2000 down to 1200).
Considering how many fools have tried to kill the A-10, it’s kind of a miracle it has survived this long!
Has it been retired?
Last I heard the retirement was still being debated, and Congress was probably going to override the AF and put the planes back into the budget.
But we's gots da fud stamps!
“All of the equipment and tooling used for construction of the A10 is also destroyed.”
WHY do they do sh#$ like this? Do they think that the Commies are going to get their hands on it or something??? This is a big country. Don’t we have the space for it????
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