Not a thing wrong with it. It can even be configured for special ordnance.
Posted on 12/17/2014 7:19:08 AM PST by ImJustAnotherOkie
The U.S. Air Force has a complicated relationship with its low- and slow-flying A-10 Warthog attack jet. And that’s putting it mildly. The flying branch has tried more than once to retire the ungainly A-10 in favor of speedier planes, only for lawmakers to block the move.
But on at least one occasion, the Air Force actually defended the heavily-armored, gun-armed Warthog from an unlikely challenger—a modern version of the World War II P-51 Mustang that Congress for some reason really loved.
In 1979, Congress demanded the Air Force test out the tiny Piper PA-48 Enforcer light attack plane—a derivative of the then-39-year-old P-51—as cheaper alternative to the A-10, which was brand new at the time. Five years later, the air service put two Enforcers through their paces.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Holy Moly!!! $125 for hardback?
Sorry, misread you’re post.
Original P-51 (and A-36) engines were Allisons. Then RR Merlins, which were license produced by Packard.
The original RRs were certainly gone by Korea, with the planes powered by the Packard versions.
According to Walt Williams it would be closer to $1.4 Million.
Sheesh, trying to get this right here.
The Alisons were definitely gone, never powered the P-51D to begin with.
The limited number of RR Merlins that were bought (not sure if any of these powered production P-51s) were certainly gone too, leaving the Packards.
Oh geeesh, I messed up. Sorry. I forgot originals were Allison.
NO!! Give me operations,
Way out on some lonely atoll.
For I am too young to die
I just want to go home.
I am coming up with 1.1 million in today's USD. So it would be 400 not 800. :) A huge number regardless.
I didn’t notice the dive brake was extended! I wonder what the power off stall speed is with that thing hanging down?
I read the paperback version the library at school had for free way back then and am surprised it costs that much.
But, it's not as much as Sled Driver : Flying the World's Fastest Jet, a book I'd very much like to have.
Wouldn’t want to use a Stuka, but an updated IL-2 or IL-10 might work.
But this one is ready for purchase and relatively cheap. You can put a lot of them in the air.
I have give this a little thought. The A-10 can be replaced.
With the proliferation of precision guided munitions, I think the A-10 could be replaced by a aircraft with a bomblet dispenser. Its primary weapon would be 25-50 lb. guided bomblets, and it would carry dozens, if not hundreds of them. The bomblets would need some standoff (glide) capability, and would be available in multiple types, including armor piercing, HE, smoke, gas, etc. It should have a crew of two (pilot and weapons officer), able to interface with ground pounders, and able to rapidly engage large numbers of targets simultaneously.
Occasionally substituted, eyes on target is still and probably always will be important. Bomblets however don’t all go off and leave nasty little surprises for the people who follow. Could even be our guys.
I don’t disagree, although I’d want to move the engine up like on a P-38 to increase ground clearance for more use on marginal runways.
I could really see a really, really simple plane like this being very useful as cheap ground support, like less than $1million a plane.
I have a pic like that with the P51. It is awesome.
Keep in mind that the recovery and restoration to flight of the P-38 Glacier Girl cost about $10 million, at the time. And the guy who led the restoration (Bob Cardin) said that every part on the aircraft was broken and had to be fixed or replaced.
Not sure how that is relevant
Not a thing wrong with it. It can even be configured for special ordnance.
Basically Glacier Girl is a new build aircraft that used some existing components.
There’s no way that you could get the price of a comparable military aircraft down to $1 million. I’d think the $10 million for GG is the floor, cost-wise. Once you start adding in required MilSpec hardware (comms, jamming, targeting, bang seat) and adopt a contemporary powerplant (not going to put Allisons or Merlins back into production) the price is really going to spike. To the point where it would just make sense to keep the A-10s with all their wonderful sunk costs (esp for the ones that were just rewinged) around for another 30 years.
Maybe, but there is actually a program for a Low Cost Battlefield Attack Aircraft (LCBAA) with the target price of no more than $1,000,0000.
The goal is to make thousands and strip out most everything.
That would need definitely fixing. Bad guys have a bad habit of re-purposing un-exploded bombs. Maybe a timer to go with the regular fuse?
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