I love the Warthog!

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Love The A-10

The Massachusetts Air National Guard still flies them out of Barnes AG base, so I see them fly overhead every so often on training missions. I heard the A10s where being transfered out this year, and being replaced by F15s at that base. They where originally slated to be retired in the early 1990s.
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I have heard they're leaving as well, but no indication yet as I spotted two over Pontoosuc Lake in Pittsfield last weekend...When I lived up in Becket, they were "frequent flyers" over my house - hugging the treeline and making incredible low turns. I'll miss them when they go... :( I met a few pilots at the Westover show and I found them to be more gritty by nature - reminded me of WWII pilots by their personality. Great guys - very approachable and proud of their aircraft...
 
They make a boresnake for that thing???
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The bores are chrome lined, and the gun is supposed to be self-cleaning. Never saw a dirty bore, despite all the ones that came through the backshop at Spangdahlem. The rest of the gun, that's a different matter. Take it apart, put it out on the washrack and hose it down with a pressure washer is the easiest way. Takes a couple of days to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together.

That last part - 1,350 rnds - must be a typo, right?

At 3,900 rnds/minute, that means a pilot would have only 20 sec of ammo.

I'm sure that a half second burst will do a lot of damage, but...
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Actually, that's the old number. They changed some things in the drum to fix some problems, and it reduced the capacity to 1150. But yeah, you don't have much time, but they train to use just a little bit.

If I was the Army, I'd buy my own A10's and operate them independently of the Air Force.
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That's part of the reason we have it, actually. The Army wanted CAS, but not the pointy jets. The AF refused, and when the Army said they were going to procure their own CAS plane, the AF backtracked and went ahead with the A-10. They don't really like it. They've already tried to replace it with an F-16, and they want to do the same with the F-35. If it happens, it'll be stupid.
 
So, now I'm guessing that pilots must engage in some significant amounts of ... um, impulse control training.
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from what I understand, if the gun fires for too long it will stop the plane in mid air and even longer possibly stall the engines.
 
I've seen the tac demos at our air shows a bunch of times, and will probably at the one coming up on July 6th. Very cool. My neighbor's kid developed a love for this plane in Desert Storm when he was in the 101st. That gun weighs about 3 tons or so.
They flew over a parade downriver, last year on Memorial Day for the opening. I believe this year it was F-16s.
 
What horrible gun handling that is. Don't you know that NRA safety rule #6 clearly states "Never stick your hand into a fighter jet's machinegun"? Jeez, man....


I saw Warthogs in action a couple of times, and they are truly a sight to behold. They are my second favorite military plane ever after the good old P51 Mustang.
 
they fly over the memorial day parades in my town in CT.
and usually afterwards the pilots have fun seeing how low they can fly over the lake.
 
If you think the bore is big, you need to see the magazine, about the size of a small car. All the ammo feeds through rails, when when the round is fired it is extrated and routed back to the magazine for storage. Those cases are heavy enough to do damage to the aircraft if released into the slipstream, or worse to a following aircraft.
 
from what I understand, if the gun fires for too long it will stop the plane in mid air and even longer possibly stall the engines.
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Not quite true. There's a slight reduction in airspeed, and the issue with the engines was smoke being sucked in. They fixed that in various ways.

Of far more concern is what happens when you fire a long burst at those firing rates. There are inspections and repairs specifically for bursts longer than certain numbers of rounds. You hardly ever need it, but it's there.
 
I've never once thought the A-10 was even remotely "ugly". There used to be some pics floating around the internet of an A-10 that was flown back and safely landed with half a wing missing and most of the tail or something like that. I was amazed at with what little was left that it could have stayed airborne. I wouldn't mind owning one of those even with an inoperable weapons set.
 
I got quite a few more photos if anyone is intrested. all are from different planes and i have some mid-air shots of the A-10 as well as the F-16C.

I'm really gonna try to upload my video of the F-16's dropping bombs on the side of the runway... THAT was a rush

The end result of that:
damagefromF-16.gif

no problem on the pics, that bore was spotless... i got absolutely NO residue of any kind on my fingers. and the bore was very intimidating to look down lol
 
The bores are chrome lined, and the gun is supposed to be self-cleaning. Never saw a dirty bore, despite all the ones that came through the backshop at Spangdahlem. The rest of the gun, that's a different matter. Take it apart, put it out on the washrack and hose it down with a pressure washer is the easiest way. Takes a couple of days to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together.
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So the armorers don't clean the bores?

I've always wondered how they clean aircraft guns. Especially those 20mm Vulcans.
 
Been up close to the A10 on more than one occasion, I've actually sat in one before, along with the F4, 15, 16, & 18... Been in the B1,52...

Lots of fun growing up near an AFB, have also been to a few beach parties with different Air forces that showed up at the local AFB.

I've mainly seen the aircraft at CFB Comox and the Abbotsford International Airshows...
 
As a former tank crewman, A-10s give me the willies. Sure, they're great when they're on your side, but IDing a tank from a couple thousand feet in the air at a few hundred miles an hour isn't the easiest thing for anyone to do.

I give the pilots nothing but respect, but I still wouldn't want to be downrange of one. :)

Now, living in Tucson near the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (in addition to having A-10s here, it's the big Air Force "plane graveyard"), I see them flying overhead all the time. They're not quiet, that's for sure, and have a distinct sound from the engines.

They still give me the willies.
 
I've always wondered how they clean aircraft guns. Especially those 20mm Vulcans.
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Flightline cleans the 20mms, which apparently do need it occasionally. It's basically the same idea with a smaller gun--cleaning rod, brush, patches and some breakfree. That's just the barrels though. The rest of the system gets cleaned when it comes into the backshop once a year or so.
 
I was always a fan of the A-10 (have several dummy shells). When I was growing up I wanted to fly the A-7 though. But, I flew the BUFF for 12 years. Nothing like being #2, at 500 ft, dropping full loads of 500 lbers, watching them explode in front of you then flying through the smoke to drop yours. Yeehaw!! :)
 
Have you seen the bomb compartment on the B-52? hell, just the wingspan is impressive!
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Think the bay in a B52 is big? Y'oughta see the B36 they have at the AF Museum at Wright-Pat. You can comfortably walk under the B36 with bay doors open. I did so, and took my MiniMag flashlight out, focused the beam, and couldn't see the top of the bomb bay. The B36 is even MORE HUGER than the Buf. The wingspan is ~ 50 feet greater! My teenaged daughter, who knows little and cares less about such matters, walked around the B36 in slack-jawed amazement.

Adding: 6 turning and 4 burning, it was beset by reliability problems. The flight crew was 15, and the engineer migh say "2 turning, 2 burning, 2 smoking, 2 joking, and 2 unaccounted for". Cruising speed was 230mph in an era of jet fighters. Lucky for the crews, never did one hear a shot fired in anger.
 
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An old friend of my family flew A-10s for years. He loved 'em -- with the exception of flying direct from CONUS to Saudi for Gulf War 1. A stupid amount of fly time and ten (10!) mid-air refuels. Some of the guys had to be pulled out by the ramp rats.

The A-10 is my son's favorite aircraft too -- even though he was a 'tracer (YAT - YAS!). AAV7s are sort of large targets and he always felt better with a pair of Hogs doin' figure-8s over the column. :evil:
 
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Not to mention, but..

...

They fire *DU rounds, that PUNCH!!! thru, like no other.

*Depleted Uranium ammo.

Kinda makes ya glow and get all comfy-feeling.. :)

~ Who ya gonna call..? Tank, Ground, Busters ~


LS
 
Love the Warthog

They fly from Whiteman AFB quite often and like to "play" around the lake of the Ozarks. More than once I have seen them line up on a boat and come in low & slow. Kinda gives you the creeps when they do that.

Also see the B-2's about every day. Thats another sight to see.

There have also been some great planes on display when Whiteman has their open house.
 
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