As aircraft are usually defined by the image of sleek, macho and sexy the Warthog is more than aptly named! Its no wonder those near sighted paperpushers ever allowed this ugly flying cannon to even be built, but it more than definitely gets the job done, and it brings home the pilot. There was news a little while back about these electronic upgrades, who knows maybe there might be a future for it even further, like a railgun?
I personally believe they should have gone all the way and named it the Buzzard.
I’ll always remember the Baghdad footage from Iraqi Freedom—the was the A-10’s maneuvered looked exactly like a turkey vulture, leisurely circling at low altitude—first standing on one wingtip, then the other, then dropping down to let off a braaaap.
There was also talk of upgrading the engines to get greater than 1:1 thrust to weight ratio to allow vertical climbs. Don’t know where that went. Anybody?