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.
That’s why they’ll kill it from 40 miles out.
Or even 5 miles with a Sidewinder.
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.
The engines are mounted very high on the fuselage. The airflow prevents over contamination.
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.
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/
Couple that with even a golden BB hit with the 30MM and it would be enough to humble any Gen 4 fighter jock and maybe even a few Gen 5s.
The NVA proved that maneuverability beats brute force with MiG 17s and it is a lesson that needs to be re-learned each generation.
That is why the enemy will destroy all 243 of them with over the horizon missiles that travel 10 times faster than the A-10 can fly. And, the A-10 pilot will never even see them coming due to their speed so he will not have time to try to avoid them.
And there you have it. In a high end fight against a technologically advanced enemy, the A-10 is worseless.
Hmmm be a good airframe for navy to revamp in to a new Missileer
Douglas F6D Missileer
I cannot tell you how broadly I smiled as the A-10 Warthog is my favorite military plane. I've read so much about it and having friends who were in Iraq for Operation Desert Storm and their stories about it, it's just stuck with me. I can remember pointing up in the sky and telling my two sons to look up at them.
Many people have no idea how redundant that plane actually is. Half its support systems can get knocked out and that plane will still get the pilot home safely. I've read accounts of half of a wing missing from an A-10 Warthog and it still making it home. Same for electronics systems getting knocked out and still getting its pilot home.
I've no idea who designed that plane, IMO they clearly had returning the pilot home safely in mind. So much to learn from the design and engineering of the A-10 Warthog.
That is a manly aircraft...
A-10 will die BFR every time. It’s not worth squat against a first tier opponent.
Back in the mid 1970s, my USMC squadron sent a Sikorsky CH-53D [Super Jolly Green Giant) to Top Gun. They bolted a gun camera on the sponson and programed the range computers as if it was armed with Sidewinders.
Our pilots figured out that if they stayed right down on the deck, the fighter radars of that time did not have good ‘look down/shoot down ‘ capibility. So the helo would stay low, looking up for the fighters. Once spotted, they would turn toward him, wait until his dive angle got too steep and he broke off. Then the CH-53 would do a “buttonhook” and pop a Sidewinder up the fighter’s tailpipe.
The 53 was 50-50 against all fighters in the inventory, except the Harrier, which won 90% of the time.
I know the Air Force hates this aircraft, but I love it!