Posted on 01/26/2021 3:41:06 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT
Pilots discuss how the A-10 Warthog's tight turning radius coupled with its big gun means it can sting even the best fighters in a dogfight.
While the “Warthog” isn’t optimized for the air superiority role and lacks key capabilities, such as high-speed, radar, and radar-guided long-range missiles that make its fighter brethren such air-to-air supremos, even the greatest fighter pilots are rightfully wary of getting into a close-in turning dogfight with a ‘lowly’ mud-moving A-10.
the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, actually teaches the art of Basic Fighter Maneuvers (BFM) in its bi-annual A-10 class, just in case pilots find themselves in a sticky situation with a pouncing enemy fighter.
Colonel Denny “Gator” Yount retired from the USAF in 2011 with an impressive 3,852 hours in the A-10. He says that of the many highlights in his career, specializing in A-10 BFM at the Weapons School as an instructor ranks as one of the most rewarding. “The air-to-air guys have a radar and they are a lot faster than we are, but they quickly learn that it doesn’t pay for them to get into the proverbial phone booth with us for a close-in dogfight.”
“BFM was one of my natural inclinations,” Yount continues. “I was always pretty good at it, having started out as a T-38 Talon Instructor Pilot.
Yount says: “The fighters generally stay high and try to point their nose in, trying to get the shot, and then get the hell out of there — because we can’t chase them out high and we can’t run them down. But if they stay in the turning fight with us in our environment we are very happy to do that all day long.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
He says you cannot see when turning hard and firing, the smoke comes over the canopy!
I’m given to understand that they had to make some sort of modification to keep the smoke from stifling the engines!
I wonder how far the misses can fly.
Interesting to see this. I few at Edwards during the mid 70s when the F-15 and the A-10 were there. Every now and then when we had a requirement to fill that didn’t take long, we’d plan a join up and formate/etc with anyone who was also flying from Test Ops that day. I took an F-15 - following an FCF and joined up with the then new A-10 for a bit of twisting around.
Boy, was this writer correct. That thing can turn on a dime and one really would not want to face that gun should its pilot be ticked off. It was fun, however, and demonstrated exactly the point that this writer was making.
Oh for those days again.
GAU-8 Avenger
Effective firing range 4,000 feet (1,220 m)
Maximum firing range Over 12,000 feet (3,660 m)
That’s why they’ll kill it from 40 miles out.
Or even 5 miles with a Sidewinder.
Doesn’t the A-10 run a Gau?
Nvm.
The wing load on an A10 is a lot lower than most fighters. She will out turn them in two turns, a lot like in WW2 the way a dauntless could out turn Zeros. Additional, the A10 if flying low can obscure radar locks with ground clutter making a close pass necessary.
All the way to the ground. 😀
The engines are mounted very high on the fuselage. The airflow prevents over contamination.
Yup, it’s got a GAU. Sorta like “Hey buddy, is that a Hemi?”
Photo chased one of the early A-10 test missions (used an A-37 for chase) when they were working out the gun. Some tanks that had been targets on the Nevada range for years were totally offed by a pass or two from that puppy.
The A-10 is a great airplane in so many ways. That’s why they are still in service despite the bureaucrats trying for so many years to kill it.
Of course air resistance is a factor, but the depleted uranium rounds that thing fires are mighty dense compared to their cross-sectional area, and the round would spend quite a while at high altitudes where the air is pretty thin (apogee with no air resistance would be a bit more than 107,000 feet). So it might fly an appreciable fraction of that 78 miles.
I think that 12000 foot "maximum firing range" figure is probably more like "maximum range for any practical shot at an actual target."
Any competent fighter pilot would take the fight to the vertical using speed and ability to climb. Doubt the Warthog would have much of a chance.
Ping to A-10 jocks.
In the desert the pilots would drift into the dining hall dinner time. The A10 guys would be smiling, telling stories, talking with their hands. The F16 guys, not so much. They were quiet, crabby, nothing much to say. The A10s were rumored to be headed for the boneyard before then, but they were well- used in the Gulf War (to the disappointment of some business minded folks) and beyond.
The A10s used to fly in Once in a while to the local base here, in two ships. They are unmistakable. Ugly and respectable. Regal and humble.
“A Fun read”
Yes it was, except I had to reboot..twice to read it all because the ads and viruses locked up the phone.
But thanks, The A-10 is an amazing machine.
The Harrier had a much tighter turning radius, faster top speed, and slower bottom stall speed (zero).
In the Decaminnou 1982 exercises, the Harrier, which is a bomber, scored 3 and 4L:1 kill ratios against F15 and F14 air superiority fighters.
That’s like saying my UPS delivery van can beat your dragster off the line in 3 out of 4 runs.
The harrier has an operational record of something like 25:0 air to air victories, second only to the the F15 which has something like 120:0. Neither were shot down in air - air combat. But the Harrier was a bomber.
It was due to the harrier ability to VIFF, Vector In Forward Flight. Very difficult to stay behind such an aircraft, so new slashing &strafing tactics needed to be developed.
https://migflug.com/jetflights/the-combat-statistics-for-all-the-aircraft-currently-in-use/
It is like when F-4s fought F-5s. Neither plane had an advantage per se. One was good at one type of fight. The other at another. The lesson was to fight your own fight and refuse to fight the enemy’s.
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