[Widget Jr]

In reality, Sprey wrote up the specification for the A-X program that became the A-10 Warthog while at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. After 1971 left the DOD to work as a recording engineer and as a military consultant.

It was Alexander Kartveli at Fairchild Aircraft who was the lead designer of the A-10. Kartveli lead the design of the P-47 Thunderbolt, F-84 Thunderjet, and F-105 Thunderchief during his career. He died in 1974 from a heart attack, two years after the A-10 first flew.

[rktman]

Mmmmmmm. Warthogs. Me likey.

[SteveH]

fugly beautiful airplane

[Chode]

[jjotto]

Kind of related: Morris Rosenthal, scientist who worked on a bunch of stuff from the Manhattan Project to the space shuttle and was a pal of Albert Einstein, recently died at age 97.

[Seruzawa]

Vietnam caught the USAF completely flat footed and the USAF had to buy Navy planes... Phantoms and A7s for ground attack. Even after that embarrassment they still tried to go back to their favorite hobby horse... air superiority and strategic bombers only. When I was in Nam the Navy and Marine support would come in low. The USAF planes were ordered to stay high.

[USMC79to83]

[blueunicorn6]

The book about John Boys is interesting.

People take the main thrust of the book to be Boyd and the Fighter mafia fighting the generals.

There are many more lessons to be learned from that book.

The US Marines were at one point in time, big fans of Boyd.

[Kaslin]

The article is in Washington Times, not Washington Post, aka Washington Compost.

[IYAS9YAS]

So ugly they’re good lookin’. Love the A-10. Had ‘em at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson. I was on the EC-130H Compass Call there way back 30 years ago. I used to give tours of the base. Civilians could sign up and meet near the main gate and we’d show up with a bus and take them around the base and into the AMARC back then (well before 9/11). We used to pass around a dummy round from the A-10. That opened some eyes.

[Openurmind]

Incredible plane. From what I understand it is a huge Gatling gun with wings attached.

[PGR88]

"...who was a formidable intellectual force in military analysis and weapons development, often tangling with top defense officials to improve U.S. military readiness and weapons development"

Atleast they tangled over weapons systems. Now, there is little tangling, and what hasn't been suppressed is about having trannies, satan worshippers, or BLM activists in the service.

[Don Corleone]

The P-51 of the modern era.

[Vision]

Very sad. I think he still had a store in Baltimore selling his small inventions and the jazz music he produced.