[Wright is right!]

HOLY SHIITE! That thing FLEW? Man, talk about building tough birds. No wonder all those A-10 pilots love 'em. Whomever designed the A-10 really did a good day's work.

Michael

[You Dirty Rats]

The plane has a "tub" of titanium surrounding the pilot. It was designed as a tank-killer and has to fly very low. It's hazardous even in peacetime, as the very low flight path required for operations means the same for training.

I saw one of the plants that produced the shells for the 30mm gatling gun. When the gun fires, the plane loses 100MPH of velocity! The shell tips are made of depleted uranium, which is very heavy and is designed to penetrate former Soviet tanks. It has the added advantage of upsetting the environmentalists!

[MattGarrett]

I've read up on the Warthog. That puppy can fly with one engine and 40% of it's wing surface blown away!

[El Gato]

Whomever designed the A-10 really did a good day's work.

They sure did, and were rewarded by having their company go out of business. A-10 was designed and built by the Fairchild-Republic. (I think that was the name at the time) Some of the support functions were taken over by Grumman for a while at least. Now I've lost track. I know (Northrop-)Gruman doesn't do the support work, I think Lockeed-Martin does. It wasn't the A-10 that did in Republic, it was a trainer, the T-46 Eaglet, aka the Thunder Piglet. Fairchild Industries was trying to sell Fairchild-Republic at the time the T-46 was being desinged, prototypes built and tested. Eventualy they just shut it down. Republic also designed a couple of other pretty rugged airplanes, the P-47 Thunderbolt of WW-II, for which the A-10 is named, and the F-105 Thundechief used extensively in Vietnam.

[Servant of the Nine]

HOLY SHIITE! That thing FLEW? Man, talk about building tough birds. No wonder all those A-10 pilots love 'em. Whomever designed the A-10 really did a good day's work.

The A-10 is unfortunately one of the aircraft due to be replaced by the Advanced Tactical Fighter.

Revert to manual controls?
The ATF is Fly By Wire.
There are no manual controls.

One more tin foil fighter being sent to do a tankbuster's job.

So9