500 MPH 2-engine whoop A$$

[Flyin6]

First there was this gun...

It was developed by General Electric, the "We bring good things to life" people.

It's one of the modern-day Gatling guns.

It shoots very big bullets...

It shoots them very quickly...

Someone said, "Let's put it in an airplane."

Someone else said, "Better still, let's build an airplane around it."

So they did. And "they" were the Fairchild Republic airplane people.

And they had done such a good job with an airplane they developed back in WWII .....called the P-47 Thunderbolt!

They decided to call it the A10 Thunderbolt.

They made it so it was very good at flying low and slow and shooting things with that fabulous gun.

But since it did fly low and slow, they made it bulletproof, or almost so.

A lot of bad guys have found you can shoot an A10 with anything from a pistol to a 23mm Soviet cannon and it just keeps on flying and shooting.

When they got through, it looked like this.

It's not sleek and sexy like an F18 or the stealthy Raptors and such, but I think it's such a great airplane because it does what it does better than any other plane in the world.

It kills tanks.

Not only tanks, as Sadam Hussein's boys found out to their horror, but armored personnel carriers, radar stations, locomotives, bunkers, fuel depots... just about anything the bad guys thought was bulletproof turned out to be easy pickings for this beast.

See those engines. One of them alone will fly this plane.

The pilot sits in a very thick titanium alloy "bathtub."

That's typical of the design.

They were smart enough to make every part the same whether mounted on the left side or right side of the plane, like landing gear, for instance.

Because the engines are mounted so high (away from ground debris) and the landing gear uses such low pressure tires, it can operate from a damaged airport, interstate highway, plowed field, or dirt road.

Everything is redundant.

They have two of almost everything.

Sometimes they have three of something.

Like flight controls, there's triple redundancy of those,
and even if there is a total failure of the double hydraulic system, there is a set of manual flying controls.

Capt. Kim Campbell sustained this damage over Bagdad and flew for another hour before returning to base.

But, back to that gun.

It's so hard to grasp just how powerful it is.

This is the closest I could find to showing you just what this cartridge is all about.

What the guy is holding is NOT the 30mm round, but a"little" 50 Browning machine gun round and the 20mm cannon round which has been around for a long time.

The 30mm is MUCH bigger.

Down at the bottom are the .50 BMG and 20x102 Vulcan the fellow was holding.

At the bottom right is the bad boy we're discussing.

Let's get some perspective here: The .223 Rem (M16 rifle round) is fast.

It shoots a 55 or so grain bullet at about 3300 feet/sec, give or take.

It's the fastest of all those rounds shown (except one).

When you move up to the ..30 caliber rounds, the bullets jump up in weight to 160-200 grains. Speeds run from about 2600 to 3000 fps or so.

The .338 Lapua is the king of the sniper rifles these days and shoots a 350 grain bullet at 2800 fps or so.

They kill bad guys at over a mile with that one.

The 50 BMG is really big. I have one on my desk.

Everyone who picks it up thinks it's some sort of fake, unless they know big ammo.

It's really huge with a bullet that weighs 750 grains and goes as fast the Lapua.

I don't have data on the Vulcan, but hang on to your hat.

The bullet for the 30x173 Avenger has an aluminum jacket around a spent uranium core and weighs 6560 grains (yes, over 100 times as heavy as the M16 bullet, and flies through the air at 3500 fps (which is faster than the M16 as well).

The gun shoots at a rate of 4200 rounds per minute, Yes, four thousand.

Pilots typically shoot either one- or two-second burst which set loose 70 to 150 rounds.

The system is optimized for shooting at 4,000 feet.

OK, the best for last.

You've got a pretty good idea of how big that cartridge is, but I'll bet you're like me and you don't fully appreciate how big the GA GAU-8 Avenger really is.

Each of those seven barrels is 112" long.

That's almost ten feet.
The entire gun is 19-1/2 feet long.

Think how impressive it would look set up in your living room.

Oh, by the way, it doesn't eject the empty shells but runs them back into the storage drum. There's just so dang many flying out, they felt it might damage the aircraft.

Oh yeah, I forgot, they can hang those bomb and rocket things on 'em too, just in case.

After all, it is an "airplane"!

Like I said, this is a beautiful design.

I'm glad it's ours.

[stlaser]

Miss seeing them fly over the farm north of Ft Wayne.....

[Flyin6]

Miss seeing them fly over the farm north of Ft Wayne.....

You'll never see them in Colorado...Scares the locals, not enough safe places...

[stlaser]

Miss seeing them fly over the farm north of Ft Wayne.....

You'll never see them in Colorado...Scares the locals, not enough safe places...

Nope, just those chinooks...... you know they make everyone feel warm and fuzzy

[TexasRedNeck]

Yup. It’s a beast


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[dave945]

I was down on Dale Hollow lake about five years ago walking on the dam with friends. Out of nowhere a flight of A-10s went over at low altitude and followed the lake away from us. I love that plane. When I was at Incirlik, there was an A-10 squadron there. Always made me nervous driving out to the JSOC operations building and going past the front of the A-10s.


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[Bigdave_185]

Fly out of hill air force base all day long,  love the sound off the mountain side


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[Flyin6]

Are they still in Tuscon, anybody know?

Built in Hagerstown MD way back when, what a wonderful killer of an aircraft

[cruizng]

One of my favorite offices was in Tacoma WA. It overlooked McChord AFB. The A10 flew out of there all the time. Loved the special sound of that engine.


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[KensAuto]

Are they still in Tuscon, anybody know?

Built in Hagerstown MD way back when, what a wonderful killer of an aircraft

I see them every time I go hunting south east of Tucson, dogfighting by the border... presumably from the Goldwater range. They seem to loop around through the silverbell area also, flying through the mountains by Marana, scaring the crap out of unaware hunters like myself.

[Flyin6]

Are they still in Tuscon, anybody know?

Built in Hagerstown MD way back when, what a wonderful killer of an aircraft

I see them every time I go hunting south east of Tucson, dogfighting by the border... presumably from the Goldwater range. They seem to loop around through the silverbell area also, flying through the mountains by Marana, scaring the crap out of unaware hunters like myself.

They are probably doing JAAT with the AH-64's at Marana

(Joint Air Attack Team)

[oklawall]

Loved them when I was stationed at Grissom AFB IN (no longer there after BRACC). Had to go out on 2 crash and recovery mission while I was station there 

[cj7ox]

Wonderful aircraft. Before Desert Storm, it was in the process of being turned over to the Army. The AF cancelled that after it performed so well. I remember having a set of Military Aircraft flash cards as a teen, and on the card for the A-10, it stated survival in actual combat is unlikely. Man, how wrong they were! The only bird I've ever seen through history that could sustain as much damage and keep flying is the B-17. And nothing beats the sound of BRRRRrrrrrrtttt to get the heart pumping!

[Nate]

its funny you bring that up sean...everytime they say they are going to get rid of it and the army says they will take it as is, the AF suddenly has a change of heart.

[Flyin6]

Wonderful aircraft. Before Desert Storm, it was in the process of being turned over to the Army. The AF cancelled that after it performed so well. I remember having a set of Military Aircraft flash cards as a teen, and on the card for the A-10, it stated survival in actual combat is unlikely. Man, how wrong they were! The only bird I've ever seen through history that could sustain as much damage and keep flying is the B-17. And nothing beats the sound of BRRRRrrrrrrtttt to get the heart pumping!

Man do I know that to be true

I believe all that was called "Initiative 17" which was some back room deal the US Senate cooked up. It would have given all close air support to the Army along with the Air Force's Helicopters. As a 160th SOAR guy at the time, some of us were headed over to take over the various aircraft. One Chinook guy was OK'd to start CH-53 training with the Air Force in Albuquerque, and a couple of the rest of we hot rods were working our way toward the A10. I was one of those guys on the preliminary "I wanna go so-so bad" list. Who knows if any of us would have been released to go, in thinking about it, I doubt it seriously. A NightStalker pilot takes years to train up and the pipeline inbound is not exactly full of folks. I imagine we who were already qualified and filling a seat in an advanced aircraft would have been locked down...

But then again, just maybe...

[cj7ox]

Yeah, I had a buddy who transitioned from OH-58s to fixed wing as part of the expected transition. He was hard slotted for an A-10 slot. When that fell through, he ended up as a Sherpa driver. He was a National Guardsman, who continued to fly on the civilian side...from helicopter tours, to pipeline flying in Alaska, to oil rig ferrying in the gulf until he took an AGR job as an IP for the Sherpa until the airframe was retired from the Army. Dude had a huge amount of hours in his flight log on a crap ton of different airframes.

[Flyin6]

Yeah, I had a buddy who transitioned from OH-58s to fixed wing as part of the expected transition. He was hard slotted for an A-10 slot. When that fell through, he ended up as a Sherpa driver. He was a National Guardsman, who continued to fly on the civilian side...from helicopter tours, to pipeline flying in Alaska, to oil rig ferrying in the gulf until he took an AGR job as an IP for the Sherpa until the airframe was retired from the Army. Dude had a huge amount of hours in his flight log on a crap ton of different airframes.

You don't see Armee pilots with a load of flight time any more. 2,000 is getting to be big time. When I was a wipper snapper, I had just short of 1,700 the day I pinned CW2.
Flying Chinooks, where you'd think you'd get very little, I usually flew more than 500 a year. But compared to civilian flying, that's nothing. Flying jets, I'd do 900 a year and my last time flying as a line captain in Afghanistan, we flew upward of 250 hours in 6 weeks.
My circle of aviators runs from the mid teens to over 25,000. One guy I heard of had over 50,000 hours! Think about that, 50,000 hours and was an instructor.

[cj7ox]

Yeah he had a lot of civilian hours in Jetrangers and Bell 214s. I want to say he had mid six figures across rotor and fixed wing hours.

[Flyin6]

Yeah he had a lot of civilian hours in Jetrangers and Bell 214s. I want to say he had mid six figures across rotor and fixed wing hours.

214's?
There is such a thing, but rare. My guys actually operated them. Only 60 ever built by Bell for the shaw of Iran when there was such a thing. I'd wager maybe a third of them are still flyable worldwide.

Maybe he was flying 412's??

Twin engine four bladed Huey, more common as an air ambulance, IFR off shore transport, and fire fighting.

[cj7ox]

Yeah he had a lot of civilian hours in Jetrangers and Bell 214s. I want to say he had mid six figures across rotor and fixed wing hours.

214's?
There is such a thing, but rare. My guys actually operated them. Only 60 ever built by Bell for the shaw of Iran when there was such a thing. I'd wager maybe a third of them are still flyable worldwide.

Maybe he was flying 412's??

Twin engine four bladed Huey, more common as an air ambulance, IFR off shore transport, and fire fighting.

That's the one! I got a little lysdexic in my mind. LOL!

[Farmer Jon]

So can I buy one with the typical fire arms purchase permit or would I need some kind of special permit?

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