Posted on 01/11/2017 10:22:27 AM PST by blam
Alex Lockie
January 11, 2017
USAF
In another positive sign for the beloved A-10, Air Force maintainers at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona have outfitted the Warthog with an upgrade for combat search and rescue missions (CSAR).
Dubbed the lightweight airborne recovery system, the upgrade helps A-10 pilots "communicate more effectively with individuals on the ground such as downed pilots, pararescuemen and joint terminal attack controllers," according to an Air Force statement.
Of all the fixed-wing aircraft in the US Air Force's inventory, no plane carries out CSAR missions like the A-10.
CSAR missions jump off with little warning and often involve going deep into enemy territory, so becoming certified to perform CSAR missions takes tons of training, which only A-10 pilots undergo.
A US ground crew member walks past a line of American A10 aircraft on an airbase in Kuwait March 16, 2003. Russell Boyce/Reuters
The A-10's rugged survivability, massive forward firing power, newly acquired communication capabilities, and long loiter times at low altitudes make it ideal for flying low and slow and finding the lost person.
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
And you can drive by about a mile of them mothballed out in Tucson, so we may not need any new ones for a while anyway.
I only inquired about the tooling due to decreasing production lead time ramp up. Its a foregone conclusion we can create and build new tooling for what we need.
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Actualallay they always fly over my house first, break the bathroom mirror, circle and salute Fort Ticonderoga and Mt. Defiance, then roar down Lake George
But it is a pet peeve of mine when someone says we can't do something we've already DONE!
I sat left seat in an OH-58 during JAATs (Joint Air Attack Team) in the early ‘80’s. Arty, Cobras, OH-58’s and A10’s in a synchronized dance.
30MM.
Two distinct sounds when shooting: Mini-sonic booms from the bullets and then the sound of the gun firing.
Are you talking about the undecorated replacement panel?
As hard as they tried I agree with you.
It isn't necessary to build new A-10s. We have all we will ever need sitting in the boneyard at Davis Monthan.
We don't need the tooling, either. Recently the still active A-10s needed to have their wings replaced, and it was Boeing that won the contract to design and manufacture new wings. The wing kits were installed by USAF personnel during routine Depot level maintenance.
1st lets find the original plans, I doubt they were destroyed. With that said, we are in a new era of CAD/CAM and a ton of manufacturing technologies such was water jetting, elastic superforming of aluminum, let alone printing parts.
I see no reason why a Lockheed F-117 type Kelly Johnson Mgt Style Group couldn't be spun up to make parts from CAD models drawn up from copying the original plans, and then you could hand it to the CAM side above even in small quantities. Once one is done and the learning curve figured out, why not make more if Uncle Sugar will pay for the spare parts. LIRP, Low initial rate of production.
Once a pilot gets a taste of close air support and what it means to the grunts or other supported troops, some find it hard to go back to the yank and bank of practicing air-to-air combat that rarely happens in modern air warfare.
One of the most-critical needs for CAS is the ability to communicate directly with the troops on the ground. Using intermediaries likeFACs/JTACs and such slows the response and introduces errors that get people killed. Bless these professional soldiers who devote their lives and skills to the support of ground-pounders.
TC
I was.
The A-10A cost $13 million in 1972. That equates to $75 million in 2016 dollars, for an aircraft with no radar, no fire control computing, no laser designator, no FLIR camera, and no multi-function displays.
Just because an aircraft cost $13 million 45 years ago doesn't mean it cost $13 million to replicate today.
Probably not. The A-10 was built in the 1970s by a very famous aircraft manufacturer, Fairchild-Republic, that not longer exists. The production jigs were probably scrapped decades ago.
You could probably reverse engineer one using existing aircraft and parts as templates. A lot of time and money. But you would inevitably run into the “better is the enemy of good enough” syndrome as various improvements to the design were put forward. And why would you resist incorporating them?
It is sort of like the Australian billionaire that is building a replica of the Titanic in China. In all the public places, it will look like the Titanic. In all the engineering spaces, bridge, propulsion plant, navigation equipment, etc. it will be a 21st century ship.
Returning to the new build A-10, it might externally resemble the original aircraft and would certainly incorporate the titanium bathtub for the pilot and the massive 30mm cannon but it would also incorporate all the lessons the Air Force has learned in operating it and a lot of new technology insertions.
Probably incorporate new engines and avionics at a minimum. If things get way out of hand, you get a stealth version that looks sort of like a really strange looking straight winged, twin engine F-35.
Essentially, it would be a new aircraft and would have to go through full developmental and operational testing. A lot of time and money.
Then the question would be how many to produce, how much will it cost, and what does the Air Force give up to produce them?
Are we planning a tank war anytime soon?
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