Battled Damaged A10

Bighurt · Feb 10, 2011

I can't remember the exact precentage of wing surface that can be missing. But it will fly with one engine and one tail completely missing. And yes the aircraft was built around it's main cannon, everything else was a side thought...LOL

It can't even fire at full auto as the recoil will stall the aircraft. Burst only!

It's quite the aircraft!

Smokinyoda · Feb 10, 2011

Sad thing is they were slated to be mothballed just before Desert Storm, when they showed there worth.

There loiter ability and time on target is amazing. A titanium "bathtub", and a nose gun that can actualy slow you to stall speed if fired to long. Gotta love it!!!

General Mcgregor · Feb 10, 2011

Saw one at an airshow a while ago, the nosegear and pilot seat are built offset the main cannon.

It can hit targets with infared in the dead of night with zero visibility, a strong headwind and a green pilot. I guess they are also quite simplistic and easy to handle. It's like a military aviators dream. :drool:

hippiedude · Feb 10, 2011

I grew up with the A10s fiying over my house every day ................ :-D

......they moved them out a few years ago ..... :sad:

...... Now all we get are F16`s ............. Boring ............. (NOT) ............... They just disapear so fast ...........

.................. Tim

A/C Cages · Feb 10, 2011

All I can say is if it wasnt for A10s I would be here. They have saved my butt several times in the 12 years I spent in the desert.

Wrench Wench · Feb 10, 2011

I would hope it was not repaired and returned to service. I hope it was defuelled, the ordnance de-milled and returned to their original locations on the plane, and have it placed in a military aviation museum with each and every hole documented for what it came from and what damage it did to the plane's internals, all with the footage of its return to base and touch-down playing on a nearby 8' screen.

wreckerman893 · Feb 11, 2011

When I was at Fort Benning my unit had to remove and replace target vehicles on Kilo Impact Area. This range is where the Specter Gunships and the A-10's come to work out. When ever the A-10's were scheduled to use the range we would take some MRE's and a cooler to the observation area and make a day out of it.

My unit was an Ordnance unit and our guys delivered ammo to the airfield to reload them.

After the A-10 hit a tank it became a series of holes connected by scrap metal.....we hauled a lot of old AMTRACS and M-48's off that range.

aspann · Feb 22, 2011

When Wreckerman says MRE's, he means possum sandwitches.

Hope I have been on SS long enough to poke Wreckerman without offending. :driver:

USAFSS-ColdWarrior · Feb 22, 2011

aspann said:
When Wreckerman says MRE's, he means possum sandwitches. Hope I have been on SS long enough to poke Wreckerman without offending.

Would that be:

M.R.E. = Marsupials Ready to Eat ? ? ?

And as for "poking" your fellow SS Members...
Your length of service, rank or time in grade don't matter, but always practice the "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL" policy regarding any back-woods "poking" y'all might do.

Karl kostman · Feb 22, 2011

Equipment, pilots and the support people to keep these fantastic planes and people in the air are worth every penny spent to do so and there should be a heck of a LOT MORE pennies spent on this kind of stuff, it makes me feel AWESOME and extremely PROUD to be and AMERICAN!
KK

wreckerman893 · Feb 22, 2011

When Wreckerman says MRE's, he means possum sandwitches. Hope I have been on SS long enough to poke Wreckerman without offending

No offense Sir. Anyone that loves MV's and possums can't be all bad.

M.R.E. = Marsupials Ready to Eat ? ? ?

That would be Meal #3....between the kosher and vegetarian meals.

DeuceDad · Feb 22, 2011

A10 Re-wing

Karl kostman said:
Equipment, pilots and the support people to keep these fantastic planes and people in the air are worth every penny spent to do so and there should be a heck of a LOT MORE pennies spent on this kind of stuff, it makes me feel AWESOME and extremely PROUD to be and AMERICAN!
KK

All, I love these A10s as well, they are a well built machine, we are actually working on overhauling the aircraft and putting complete new wings on them as well as other upgrade packages. They will be around for a while. [thumbzup]

Pooch1128 · Feb 22, 2011

BRAVO, enough said.

Adragontattoo · Feb 23, 2011

There are a few aircraft that I would give body parts to own.

A-10 being the "newest" fixed wing, F4U, P38 and B17 being the oldest fixed wing.

I seem to have a inborn fascination with vehicles that refuse to stop working when multiple parts of them are removed by force...

RangerBob · Dec 5, 2014

Not yet ready for the scrap heap!

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/a10-warthog-isis/

America’s Toughest, Ugliest Warplane Is Going Back Into Battle

The A-10 carries a seven-barrel GAU-8 Avenger Gatling cannon,
a 9-foot long gun that fires armor piercing 30mm shells at 3,900 rounds per minute
and accounts for some 16 percent of the aircraft’s unladen weight.

For more than 30 years, the A-10 Thunderbolt II—better known as the Warthog because it’s so ugly—has performed a crucial role: attacking hostile targets that threaten troops on the ground, a task called close air support. The plane, designed for the Cold War, is old. It’s slow. And it’s about as sophisticated as a hammer. But it is heavily armored and wickedly armed, making it a ruthlessly effective weapon. And that is why, despite ongoing efforts by Defense Department brass to kill it, the Warthog is headed back into battle to help in the fight against ISIS.

An undisclosed number of Warthogs, part of the “Blacksnakes” 163rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron based at Fort Wayne, Indiana, have been deployed to Middle Eastern airbases to provide air cover to troops fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

That makes the A-10 something of a zombie—it refuses to die. The Air Force wants to scuttle the 238 A-10s still in service, a move that would save $3.7 billion over five years—and make way for more sophisticated planes like the new F-35 Lightning II. But given the crucial role it plays providing close air support, something particularly helpful against enemies in a place like Iraq, the A-10 has many staunch defenders, including Senator John McCain.

More in the article. And...it's not 'ugly'; it's friggin' gorgeous. Also, the sound of a Warthogs fart is like music to the ears of a ground-pounder.

steelypip · Dec 5, 2014

At the risk of putting politics in the thread, I'll just point out that there hasn't been a day in the A-10's existence when some go-fast fighter pilot didn't want it shipped off to the boneyard because it was costing money that could go to more fast movers. Every stick jock in TAC hated them with a vengeance except those detailed to them (and probably some of them, too).

After TAC got rolled into ACC post cold war, nothing changed. It's practically an intelligence test for a fighter jock - can they stand the idea that CAS is a necessary part of aerial warfare or not? Can they accept that flying over a battlefield at 500 KIAS while dropping ordinance does not constitute CAS? Most can't. That tells you a lot about fighter jocks.

The warthog is the perfect tool for the job. I can't think of anything fundamental about the airframe that isn't going to be indefinitely perfect for the job. All they need is periodic upgrades of weapons and avionics and to be where the fighting is, instead of the boneyard.

The ugly truth is that the army should have owned the airplane from day one, but it isn't allowed to own fixed-wing aircraft that heavy, and USAF isn't about to let that restriction change.

Long live the A-10. With a little luck reality will continue to triumph over fighter pilot egos in the coming decades.

Special T · Dec 6, 2014

Ive had the fortunate experience to see them on practice strafing runs on Nellas AFB in NV, And "Lofting" bombs over a mile. I considered it pretty impressive that these planes/pilots could take a dummy bob and throw it over a mile and hit a tank with it. They would fly about 200Ft off the ground, pull up loose the bomb and drop right back down to 200 ft and leave.

Csm Davis · Dec 6, 2014

steelypip said:
The warthog is the perfect tool for the job. I can't think of anything fundamental about the airframe that isn't going to be indefinitely perfect for the job. All they need is periodic upgrades of weapons and avionics and to be where the fighting is, instead of the boneyard.

The ugly truth is that the army should have owned the airplane from day one, but it isn't allowed to own fixed-wing aircraft that heavy, and USAF isn't about to let that restriction change.

Long live the A-10. With a little luck reality will continue to triumph over fighter pilot egos in the coming decades.

What about letting the Marines have them? Our pilots probably do more CAS than all the rest put together.

steelypip · Dec 13, 2014

Csm Davis said:
What about letting the Marines have them? Our pilots probably do more CAS than all the rest put together.

A legitimate question that deserves a legitimate answer: Runways.

The USMC is our expeditionary force. Light on its feet and quick to the party. Because of this, USMC does most of its CAS with VTOL/STOL aircraft. Yes, they have plenty of F/A-18's and yes they get used for CAS. But they have to be launched from supercarriers or from a hard surface runway, which means that they're either not operating in an expeditionary role, or they are flying a fairly long distance to the target on every sortie, since putting thousands of USN and USMC personnel and their ship in harm's way to support a few dozen guys in a battle on land is generally regarded as a bad idea.

Flying 500 miles to the target in a fast mover isn't that big a deal - it just costs fuel and adds two hours to the mission. By comparison, the sweet spot for a warthog is about 250 KIAS with a declared cruise of 300 knots - not night and day faster than a blackhawk, and quite comparable with an Osprey. So the two hour transit time for the F/A-18 turns into four hours for the warthog. That isn't exactly a force multiplier...

Fuel you burn getting to the target is fuel you can't spend loitering, which, along with the slow speed, is why the warthog is so good for CAS - it can hang out for hours hosing down anything that pops up to bother the guys on the ground.

Now these are all solvable problems (the Seabees have been solving them for most of a century now), and I think it's unfortunate that USMC didn't get to buy the warthog (presumably with probe-and-drogue refueling) in place of more A-6s back when both were in production.

But a Marine-ized warthog would, at least, need to be fitted out with carrier arresting gear, tougher landing gear, and the avionics that go with them, probably also some airframe strengthening to deal with carrier landings as well. It would be related to the USAF airplane, but would also be significantly different, probably with a somewhat reduced range/loiter time because of weight gain. Compare the performance of the USAF F-86 to the USN/USMC FJ-2 for the likely penalties associated with such a conversion.

For its part, USAF wanted to stick bigger engines on the warthog to get the max gross takeoff roll down below 7500 ft. That should tell you something...

Csm Davis · Dec 13, 2014

steelypip said:
A legitimate question that deserves a legitimate answer: Runways.

The USMC is our expeditionary force. Light on its feet and quick to the party. Because of this, USMC does most of its CAS with VTOL/STOL aircraft. Yes, they have plenty of F/A-18's and yes they get used for CAS. But they have to be launched from supercarriers or from a hard surface runway, which means that they're either not operating in an expeditionary role, or they are flying a fairly long distance to the target on every sortie, since putting thousands of USN and USMC personnel and their ship in harm's way to support a few dozen guys in a battle on land is generally regarded as a bad idea.

Flying 500 miles to the target in a fast mover isn't that big a deal - it just costs fuel and adds two hours to the mission. By comparison, the sweet spot for a warthog is about 250 KIAS with a declared cruise of 300 knots - not night and day faster than a blackhawk, and quite comparable with an Osprey. So the two hour transit time for the F/A-18 turns into four hours for the warthog. That isn't exactly a force multiplier...

Fuel you burn getting to the target is fuel you can't spend loitering, which, along with the slow speed, is why the warthog is so good for CAS - it can hang out for hours hosing down anything that pops up to bother the guys on the ground.

Now these are all solvable problems (the Seabees have been solving them for most of a century now), and I think it's unfortunate that USMC didn't get to buy the warthog (presumably with probe-and-drogue refueling) in place of more A-6s back when both were in production.

But a Marine-ized warthog would, at least, need to be fitted out with carrier arresting gear, tougher landing gear, and the avionics that go with them, probably also some airframe strengthening to deal with carrier landings as well. It would be related to the USAF airplane, but would also be significantly different, probably with a somewhat reduced range/loiter time because of weight gain. Compare the performance of the USAF F-86 to the USN/USMC FJ-2 for the likely penalties associated with such a conversion.

For its part, USAF wanted to stick bigger engines on the warthog to get the max gross takeoff roll down below 7500 ft. That should tell you something...

Okay so a carrier based warthog would be nice but do you have a reason why we couldn't use them just like they are? We are setup to do anything the airforce can and then some. Not all Marine aircraft are carrier based so not that big of a deal.

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