My memories of the A-10 Warthog

[bonneyman]

Just saw this new category thread. Thought I might share some of my memories from working on the Warthog. But I tend to talk too much so I'll leave it up to you guys if you want me to write down my reminiscences of those long ago days. Honestly I never thought back then that the plane would still be flying, but since it's still with us 40 years later perhaps someone might be interested.

[jabberwoki]

Did you fly one?

[bonneyman]

Did you fly one?

No, I was a mechanic, and got stationed at a base that flew the A-10. So that's what I trained on.
Is this thread only for pilots?

[DeadNutz]

It's not just for pilots but for everybody. Post away George as I had no idea you worked on Warthogs.

[Rusty]

Go for it. I for one would be very interested.

[bonneyman]

OK, I'll try and keep it interesting.

The A-10 was born out of the dismal experience of ground support during the Vietnam War. Alot of study was put into a plane that was specifically designed for close air support of ground troops. High speed and air to air combat were not really considerations. Survivability, load carrying capacity, and accurate delivery were key. In fact, the weapons systems were created to do the job, and the plane designers built the aircraft around  the weapons. Since the primary battlefield was to be eastern Europe to defend against the USSR's overwhelming advantage in tanks, a special gun had to be created to destroy them. The typical aircraft gun at the time was the 20mm. The shells were not powerful enough to penetrate the tank armor, so a larger, more powerful round had to be developed. The CAS (close air support) plane would get a 30mm (1.25") gun.
Two company's put forth designs out that were flown against each other - IIRC it was Northrup A-9 and the Fairchild Republic A-10. The A-10 design proved much more capable, and was chosen for production. That started in 1975, with the first birds being delivered in 1976. Production ended in 1983 after about 750 planes were built.

Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona was the main training base, with Myrtle beach AB in South Carolina was the first active flying base. They got the earliest batches of planes. As I recall a hurricane went through the area in the 80's, and the Myrtle beach was so damaged they decided to close the base down rather than repair it. All the planes got sent to us in Arizona. All I remember is how grody and rusted those birds were - the salt sea air and obvious lack of care was woefully apparent!

The GAU-8 gatling gun is the main attraction of the Warthog. Capable of firing 4200 rounds a minute (on high speed) it could obliterate any tank. The armor piercing shells were made of depleted uranium, very dense and turning into a fireball inside the tank after the friction of penetrating the armor sets it off. Development of the rounds and gun was tough. The early projectiles had a smoky burning powder, and the gun put out so much smoke that they found in early tests the engines would get starved for air. Plus the pilots couldn't see anything! So cleaner propellants were developed. Also, the recoil from the gun was so strong (I heard) the planes had to be flying at least 300 MHP and descending or the plane would slow down enough to stall. Typically now most bursts of the gun are kept to a few seconds at most to prevent this. And it wasn't a problem - just one of the shells hitting the tank does the job!

The second main weapon is the AGM (air to ground) 65 missile. Using a visual camera system, the pilot can "see" what the camera in the missile sees and locks it onto a target. Once fired, the missile will follow the target. Even if the tank is cruising at 60MPH it'll still get toasted!

[bonneyman]

I was a weapons mechanic on the A-10. Bombs, rockets, missiles, and the massive machine gun in the nose. There were 4 categories of weapons mechanics: weapons loading, gun repair shop, electronics repair, and EOD. I was a weapons loader, part of a 3 man crew that loaded all ordnance on the aircraft. I drove the the specialized "forklift" vehicle known as a "jammer". I'd drive up to the trailer behind the plane that the bomb yard had put all the bombs on, lift off the bombs one at a time, and drive around to raise it into position under the wing so the other 2 guys could attach it. I also was in charge of setting and installing the fuses, and was up on top of the ammo trailer helping the #2 man prep the belt of ammo to be fed into the plane.
Some vids showing what I did:

Most of the time we were in training. The "bombs" we loaded were inert (i.e. concrete). They had the shape, weight, and falling characteristics of real 500 pound bombs (so pilots could realistically train). Once in a while we would load "live" 500 pounders. Thinking back I don't recall treating them any different than the fake bombs I always worked with. the fact that if I inserted the fuse wrong could have blasted me into a million pieces didn't enter my mind. It was a job and I did it. All the safeties were in, so, no big deal. We rotated among the load crews to do EOR (End of runway) duty. Takeoff end we had to pull all the safeties right before the plane took off and do a final check. Landing end had us re-insert the safety pins on any munitions they hadn't dropped. If a safety pin wouldn't go in all the way we had to tell the pilots take it to the "hot gun" area and wait of EOD to come out. they weren't very happy about this, as they would then have to wait for the bomb squad to come out and safety the bomb or whatever before they could go home.

We had very few accidents in my squadron. One experience I remember is we had a plane come back with the "gun malfunction" light on. The safety pin went in, so, the EOR crew sent the plane back to the flightline. The pilot said he heard a loud "thud" or "clunk" and then the light came on. So my crew went out to drop the bottom panels and see what we could see. After removing the probably 50 screws holding the bottom panel up, as we lowered it all sorts of bits and pieces fell out. Broken pieces of metal, black powder, pieces of 30mm brass cases, live 30mm projectiles! All of this crap rolling down the front of my shirt. I was stunned, and found myself standing in a pile of debris - explosive debris! We quickly pulled off the aircraft and called EOD. Just one of the damaged shells goes off, it could hit the fuel tank and cause and explosion in the plane - and it was parked 30-40 feet away from the next plane, all 30 or so of the planes in rows!
Come to find out the chain link system that transported the shells from the ammo drum to the gun ad broken a link. being hydraulic powered the gun didn't slow down or jam - it just kept right on running full tilt. The following cartridges and chain just got jammed into the moving parts and got crunched. The pilot heard a "thud" alright - he's lucky the thing didn't explode right under his butt!

[jabberwoki]

I wasn't qualifying you B man i was just interested in what you`d done.
Great write up.

[bonneyman]

More on the gun. It had to be centered in the airframe, as the aforementioned recoil would seriously affect the stability of the plane if it wasn't centered. If you ever get to see an A-10 at an airshow, walk to the front and look at the nose. You'll see the front landing wheel is left of the gun - which is centered.

The ammo drum held 1150 rounds, and the gun had two firing rates. Lo was 2100 rounds per minute, high was 4200 rounds per minute. After firing the empty brass casings were returned to the drum to be reloaded. (It was a cost savings). Actually they needed the weight. The A-10 was built around the gun, quite literally. In fact, the plane couldn't fly without the gun. The weight distribution wouldn't allow it. In fact, whenever we removed the gun from the plane for maintenance or repair we had to install a tail jack under the rear to keep it from flopping back on it's arse! It was so finely balanced that if the plane was going to be flown somewhere and it wasn't required to be loaded with ammo we had to install/remove ballast in the nose to balance it out.

The gun has 7 barrels, so - at 4200 rounds per minute - it's spinning at 600 revolutions per minute to fire that many. That's 10 revolutions per second! (Even on low speed that's 5 revolutions per second).  Having 7 barrels spreads out the wear and allows of some cooling between firings, but in anyone's books that's a blur! I think the barrels lasted 25,000 rounds before getting out of spec. Can't remember - that was the gun shops job. Luckily we didn't have to lube the gun. Whew!

Here's the front of the gun from the air museum bird, and a 30mm shell I turned into a static display. The local swap meets occasionally get surplus from the base, and I was lucky enough to snag a brass casing and - two years later - a steel projectile.

[bonneyman]

I wasn't qualifying you B man i was just interested in what you`d done.
Great write up.

No prob. I was APU certified, so have some "cockpit" time under my belt.

At the time very few aircraft in the US inventory could start themselves. Multimillion dollar aircraft - on emergency standby, no less - couldn't start themselves. The A-10 could. It had a APU (auxillary power unit) in the back end that the pilot could start, and use the air and electrical output to start the planes engines and take-off by himself if needed. Made for a great plane in the middle of the forest or desert in a bare essentials country.

Anyways I took the class and got APU certified, because some of the weapons work we did required electrical and hydraulic power. I'd sit in the cockpit and start 'er up and the other guys would plug in their testers to the different pylons and check for proper voltage and signals and such. The one crew I was on all 3 of us were APU certified, so, we'd take turns sitting in the cockpit while the other two worked! Was nice in the summer, as you could turn on the A/C while your teammates were sweating their butts off!

[jabberwoki]

Have you seen the specs on the new updated version?

[john k]

I was Army, but got to see and hear the gatling fire when some A-10s made use of the impact zone.  I was in a safe area, at least 1.5 miles miles away.  I can only descibe the sound like this,  imagine a Waring blender, 1,000lb. size,  filled with steel balls,  on Puree for 3 seconds at a time.   Guys around me stepped back when the noise hit us, we could already see the planes, a most intimidating sound.  Thanks for your memories.

[bonneyman]

Have you seen the specs on the new updated version?

No, I just read about it last week. More of an announcement really.

[DeadNutz]

Thanks for posting that great stuff George and keep it coming as you think of it.

[bonneyman]

I was Army, but got to see and hear the gatling fire when some A-10s made use of the impact zone.  I was in a safe area, at least 1.5 miles miles away.  I can only descibe the sound like this,  imagine a Waring blender, 1,000lb. size,  filled with steel balls,  on Puree for 3 seconds at a time.   Guys around me stepped back when the noise hit us, we could already see the planes, a most intimidating sound.  Thanks for your memories.

You are welcome, John.
As it turned out, the A-10's provided the deterrence needed against the Soviets so they never tried attacking Europe. And they have proven themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan, just an updated paint job. I've seen strike films of Warthogs pounding mountain hideouts with the gun. Arabs knew to keep their heads down. The 30mm AP round was designed to penetrate any known armor and reinforced concrete up to 12 inches thick. No telling what the new rounds can do.

They were/are also deployed in South Korea, and there is a base in Alaska that hosts them. Don't ask me why. I can't see any ground threat in Alaska, unless the Russian try ferrying across the Bering Strait. As I recall those birds had all sorts of problems, the cold just doesn't play well with them. Don't know if they ever fixed the issues, either.

[bonneyman]

Thanks for posting that great stuff George and keep it coming as you think of it.

Now that you mention it, I haven't talked about the cockpit protection. The A-10 has a titanium "tub" that the cockpit sits in. Virtually indestructible, it can take a 30mm anti-aircraft round hit and not show a dent on the inside. The pilot and all the sensitive controls are located inside this 'tub".
I recall there was an A-10 crash in Myrtle Beach, can't remember the year. Plane went down in a heavily wooded area. Investigators found the impact point and alot of wreckage, but no pilot. Then they noticed a square shaped "tunnel" through the trees. They followed that tunnel hole and found the cockpit inside the titanium tub some distance away. Thing made a perfect square hole thru the trees!
And inside was the pilots body. He was decapitated, as his head (obviously) had to be above the tub to see outside. But his entire body was intact!

After reading about this incident I remember wondering why there wasn't more of these kinds of crashes. I've seen strike films where the A-10 pilot was flying so low he had to roll 90 degrees to fly between two tall pine trees! they had to train and fight at very low altitudes, as they weren't fast enough to outrun other fighters. (Max speed clean in level flight at the perfect altitude was 500 MPH). So they had to fly low and as fast as they dared. Plus they were vulnerable to ground fire being so low, so flying at treetop level was a way of sneaking up on a target, popping up at the last instant, and pummeling it before they could react. Such flying should have produced more forest crashes, but I didn't hear of any.

[goodfellow]

Good stuff George. IIRC the self sealing fuel tank technology was pretty advanced for the day (mid-1970s) and it was able to stop leaks even when the tank was riddled like swiss cheese. Saw a documentary on that once, and it was impressive. Fairchild-Republic was way ahead of the curve when they put the A-10 design on paper.
Problem is the the Air Force has been trying to kill the A=10 program for years. The big Aerospace conglomerates have been lobbying (aka -- bribing and wining/dining) Air Force brass to call it quits on the A-10 and come up with a new (more EXPENSIVE) design. Some even want to produce an F-35 variant to take over close ground support. A ridiculous notion at best, and extremely dangerous at worst to have the F-35 assume that role.

I'm glad that there is a huge lobby in congress that keeps funding this airframe into the future. Nothing can replace the A-10 and that big a$$ gun it carries.

[DeadNutz]

I'm a firm believer that after the Russians saw how well the Warthog decimated the Iraqi armor in Kuwait and Iraq that they re-thought their grand plan of storming armor through Europe. The pictures of the highway of death told the story of how effective the A-10's are. The thing that cracked me up though was the military telling the press and others to stay away from the carnage due to radioactivity from the 30mm depleted uranium rounds. If they were so radioactive hot how the heck were they manufactured and loaded into guns by soldiers like George?

The facts of course are that the convoy on the highway to Baghdad was transporting all the radioactive material looted from Kuwait which is the reason Saddam invaded in the first place.

[ron350]

 Yes a great airplane.

[bonneyman]

Yes, Roy, Fairchild did seem to be on top of things when they designed it.

I read a report that stated an A-10 could lose one half of the tail, the outer one third of a wing, one engine, all hydraulic power, all fuel tanks punctured, and everything forward of the cockpit - and still fly! So your statement corroborates that statement.

And for those who say the gun firing 4200 rounds per minute costs alot of money: the high explosive rounds then cost $40 a pop. A 3 second rip of the gun fires 210 rounds, so, that costs $8400. Not cheap. But alot cheaper than an AGM-65, which then costed $1 million.

[bonneyman]

I'm a firm believer that after the Russians saw how well the Warthog decimated the Iraqi armor in Kuwait and Iraq that they re-thought their grand plan of storming armor through Europe. The pictures of the highway of death told the story of how effective the A-10's are. The thing that cracked me up though was the military telling the press and others to stay away from the carnage due to radioactivity from the 30mm depleted uranium rounds. If they were so radioactive hot how the heck were they manufactured and loaded into guns by soldiers like George?

The facts of course are that the convoy on the highway to Baghdad was transporting all the radioactive material looted from Kuwait which is the reason Saddam invaded in the first place.

That is a great point! I think I have to thank the grace of God on that one. I knew the rounds used depleted uranium, but didn't take the next step and think when I'm handling them I'm REALLY close to radioactive material. Maybe I thought "depleted" meant "non-toxic". I know now that's stupid but didn't realize it at the time.
My time close to those shells over 4 years was quite small - I think the bomb storage yard personnel had ALOT more worries than I did. They were around that stuff all day, every day. Sheesh!

I also did a temporary assignment at George AFB outside Victorville, California. And most people know it's now closed due to widespread toxic contamination, including thwe water supply. People who served there long term have come down with all sorts of horrible cancers and such, and it's been traceable to exposure to chems at that base. Again, I drank the same water those people did - the grace of God kept me from getting sick.

[bonneyman]

Great picture, Ron.

One of the main design points that won the flyoff competition for the A-10 was it's engine placement. Way back, high, and separated from the fuselage by a significant distance. A turbine failure or engine fire would have a lower chance of transferring it to the main body.
Also notice the placement of the tail structures. To help reduce chances of a heat seeking missile taking out an engine, parts were placed to cover the exhaust cone. From the side, above, and below, they're fairly obscured. Only from directly behind can you get a heat signal from the engine cone itself. But even then, the jet exhaust heat is "diluted".
You see, the engines on the A-10 are actually quite small in size. They drove a huge fan at the front of the engine, and most of that ingested air was forcefully expelled for a significant percentage of the engine thrust. (It's what gives the A-10 the distinctive engine whine it has). The small jet does produce some direct thrust, but that hot gas is "diluted" by the expelled fan air. Also consider there is no afterburner on the A-10. So, if you add up all these factors, there's very little of a heat signature even directly behind the aircraft.
This is what gives the A-10 it's weird rear end, and it must have been quite an engineering challenge to mount the engines so high and wide and off center. A whole lot of effort went into designing and building it that way which probably added to the cost but in the end 40 years later I'd say it paid off.
Compare it to the layout of the Northrup A-9, which had the engines tucked into the wing roots in the fuselage. Easier and cheaper to make - but as we've seen not as good. It's notable that the Russian's version of the CAS plane (the "Frogfoot") was a copy of the A-9 design.

Here's some info on the the A-9 prototype.
https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4446
https://www.avgeekery.com/watch-the-battle-between-the-ya-9-and-the-ya-10/

[bonneyman]

My time working on the A-10 was not all roses, however.
There are now sheet metal canopies over the parked planes, but when I worked on them we were out in the full sunlight. Summer afternoons in Tucson on a concrete flightline could get extremely hot. I don't recall too much trouble as a young lad, but we were permitted to take our heavy canvas fatigue shirts off and work in white T-shirts. Most of my time was spent on mid shift (night time), so, heat wasn't too big of an issue.
We had 3 shifts: days(8AM to 4PM), swings (4PM to 12PM) and mids (12PM to 8AM). I worked all 3, swings was the worst. Days was the coveted shift, but then you had all the high up NCO's and officers walking around looking for ways to bust you and advance themselves. Very rarely did we do night flying, so, officers during mid shift were rare. So I gravitated to mid shift. We got a new hotshot master seargent on swing shift my last year and a half there, and he worked them to the bone. He wouldn't let people go if we had a maintenance problem, keeping them after midnight just to make himself look good. Mids is when we did the plane loading, so having the entire swing shift crews there made it tough to get our job done. And if we didn't get all the right planes properly loaded on time, we hung for it - the excuse of having the other guys in the way didn't fly.

There was one of the 3 squadrons who just seemed to always be having problems (not mine). One time they were loading the gun, and had to have full electric power and hydraulic pressure to do that. The guy in the cockpit was playing "Star Wars" while he was bored, and pulled the trigger. The gun operated as advertised, shooting off 4 or 5 rounds. Almost put the plane on it's rear end! Luckily it was on the front row, so the rounds went harmlessly into the desert. Had it been in the 2nd or 3rd rows the whole dang flightline could have gone up like domino's
Another time they were doing a check on the gun, again all power applied. The gun has a safety feature in that - once you're done firing - the gun automatically backed up so the it is never loaded until you're actually firing it. (So there's actually a time lag when you pull the trigger, but as I've said before the thing spins so fast it's not noticeable). Well, as part of the maintenance checks, one of the guys underneath has to insert a test plug into the sensor to simulate to the computer that the gun has backed up and is empty. And to do that he has to jam his hand in behind the gear to click it in. Unbeknowst to him, they were out of sequence, so, once he popped in the plug the gun rotated - and took 4 of his fingers off! They put them on ice and rushed him to the hospital, and they sewed them back on. He then served as a loading instructor, the nicest guy, never said anything bad about the other guys who screwed up. After that incident they came up with a remote plug on the end of an aluminum rod so a guy didn't have to stick his hand in there.

We also had the unenviable task of washing the plane. After so many flight hours a plane was hauled over to the "wash rack" and every body took turns doing it. Picture a huge uncovered car wash - with no pressure washer! Usually there were solitary guys available to go over there. They were short a man on their crew, someone was away on vacation, certifications were expired, etc, so those poor guys had the cleaning duty. But the higher up used the wash rack as discipline. If they didn't like you, you'd get sent over there alot. In a way it wasn't too bad - if you worked fast and got the thing clean and it passed inspection you could go home early. (Although if they were behind and you got done soon enough they brought a second plane in. Dang!) Crew chiefs cleaned all the top of the airplane (they didn't want us grunts stepping on the wrong panel), so the underside was our task. Usually two guys split the duty, though occasionally only one of us was there, and the crew chief would try and help you out but he kinda had his hands full.
The 3 wheel wells were especially sick. Those areas were virtually impervious to the weak soap they made us use, and we had to clean all around the electrical connectors and hydraulic lines with various brushes and rags. It had to be spotless. Try as you might you'd get filthy, and more than once while rinsing the internals with a fire house type of rig it'd come straight back at you and you'd get a face full. I don't know what was in the soap but it tasted bad! Probably some carcinogen. At least with the A-10 it was high enough off the ground where you could almost stand up under it to clean. Fighters like the F-4 I heard were absolutely a horror to clean, as you'd be crawling or laying under it.

[skfarmer]

These stories are fascinating.

 I have mentioned before  I was friends with a guy buy the name of Jerry Beck. He was a name in the P-51 world. Died ina plane crash in osh Josh about 10 years ago now. Anywho. They had an airshow at he local airport  where his shop was.

Anywho.......somehow or another they got a warthog in for the show and got to see it do it's stuff up close. An amazing piece of machinery

[bonneyman]

I didn't get too many photos during my tenure in the Air Force, as the plane was still quite new and they weren't too keen on us guys taking closeups! Besides all the photos I do have are Polaroid One Step (my camera at the time) so they aren't uploadable here. I do have some later shots when I saw the A-10 at airshows. Perhaps I can try and dig out the photo albums and get some scanned so you guys can see them.

I know I've got some pics of the "Show Queen" display aircraft. You know, the one they spiff up and chrome parts and make it look like a jaguar for display to the public? The 7 barrel gun turrent on the front is chromed on that one. Totally ridiculous but it's cool to see your reflection in it!  :

[bonneyman]

I just saw a video of an F-22 engine being static tested, and it was said the engine costs 12 million dollars. Kinda crazy, as I recall the A-10's delivery cost was 11 million dollars - for the whole plane!   

[Rusty]

F 35 $36000 per hour of operation. Could have bought 3 A10s for the price of one flight hour.


https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/air-force-admits-f-35-fighter-jet-costs-too-much-ncna1259781 kind of interesting NBC article.

[DeadNutz]

The numbers might be off a little Rusty. The facts are that I doubt if they could design and build an upgraded A-10 aircraft in a reasonable amount of time for less than $40 million dollars a copy. The procurement system is so messed up and dollars are flushed or just going in peoples pockets for no value.

[bonneyman]

The numbers might be off a little Rusty. The facts are that I doubt if they could design and build an upgraded A-10 aircraft in a reasonable amount of time for less than $40 million dollars a copy. The procurement system is so messed up and dollars are flushed or just going in peoples pockets for no value.

Yep, the military industrial complex doesn't even try to hide their incompetence anymore.
USS Zumwalt
F-35
Littoral class ships
Virginia class submarines

[Rusty]

The numbers are way off. I just wonder what would happen if someone like Musk was to decide to create defense aircraft.

[bonneyman]

I did some more researching the A-10 replacement. Apparently even they haven't decided exactly which way to go. The F-35 can't do the A-10's role (personally I think the only unique aspect about the F-35 is it's ability to VTOL. Though helicopters over the past few wars have shown how vulnerable that makes them). The could design an new plane from scratch, or they could upgrade the Warthog.

IMHO I think any advancements that can be "bolted" onto the plane would be worth looking at. If they try and redesign the A-10 as they go it will probably do more harm than good. New missiles, smart bombs, better ammo are good starts. New computers and plan/pilot interfaces too. But modifying the planes structure isn't smart. It's hung around precisely because of the advantages of the airframe. Don't mess with a good thing. I would say maybe save weight by replacing panels with carbon fiber but after much thought I don't know how much that would save and how much it would gain the aircraft.

We have seen the prevailing mentality of upgrades with other aircraft.
The F-15 was introduced in 1976. The original design was a hot rod of an aircraft, setting almost a dozen time to climb records with the "Streak Eagle" project. On one flight the plane reached almost 99,000 feet in 3 minutes and 28 seconds. I calculated the speed of the plane at around 1,000 feet per second in a near vertical climb. Now - 40 years later - there's the F-15SE. An F-15 with newer engines and external conformal fuel tanks (known way back as the "FastPak" system) and all sorts of crap hung on the plan. Supposedly more stealthy but no longer the dominant dog fighting jet it was.

The F-16 started out as a relatively cheap superiority fighter that would supplement the more expensive F-15. An unorthodox (at the time) design that proved to be highly maneuverable. The USAF Thunderbirds don't use the aircraft just because it looks pretty! But it do suffers form a lack of a worthy replacement and so has been "upgraded" with more weight and equipment so that it can't even turn inside a Mig-29.

The F-18 is the most obvious. Starting out as the YF-17 lightweight competitor against the YF-16, it was a really unorthodox design, though it didn't quite meet the demanded specs (at the time). But the Navy was looking for a lightweight fighter to supplement its F-14 Tomcats, and the YF-17 design was much more adaptable to the Navy's needs. It was so redesigned it was given a new designation - the F/A-18. Much heavier than the YF-17, it proved extremely agile and adaptable. The Blue Angels fly it. I've seen them, and have since gained alot of respect for the F-18. Well, over the years more demands have been demanded of it so the F-18A has been enlarged and upgraded to the F-18C. Then the Tomcats were retired, and the Navy was left without a frontline heavy hitter. So they "upgraded" to F-18 again to the E Super Hornet. There's no way it can equal what the F-14 did, but, what can they do? Make it larger again, which needed bigger engines, which required extensive redesign of the intakes and rear end, and thus heavier landing gear. And it loses most of it's original advantages!

With the A-10, it doesn't need to be faster, or carry more bombs, or more durable. Just build more of them!

[bonneyman]

The kind of stuff the A-10 was designed for! Landing and taking off from a civilian highway in a first of its kind operation on US soil.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9866579/A-10-Tankbusters-land-road-time-practice-drill.html

[DeadNutz]

That was cool but some state highways can count as an unimproved landing strip. We need to keep the Warthog in inventory and add more.

[jabberwoki]

[39Tudor]

Bonneyman, thanks for posting your memoirs of your days with the “Warthog”!

If you have not read, Boyd, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art of War, I would recommend that you take a look.  John Boyd fought the Pentagon Brass to design the A10, F15, and F16 platforms for specific mission requirements instead of a single platform that could perform all the tasks but could only perform them marginally.

[pep]

 Good stuff, great bird, upgrades to the avionics & weaponry is a good path.

Sounds like a rattlesnake firing the gun.... back ground laughing priceless.

I did some more researching the A-10 replacement. Apparently even they haven't decided exactly which way to go. The F-35 can't do the A-10's role (personally I think the only unique aspect about the F-35 is it's ability to VTOL. Though helicopters over the past few wars have shown how vulnerable that makes them). The could design an new plane from scratch, or they could upgrade the Warthog.

IMHO I think any advancements that can be "bolted" onto the plane would be worth looking at. If they try and redesign the A-10 as they go it will probably do more harm than good. New missiles, smart bombs, better ammo are good starts. New computers and plan/pilot interfaces too. But modifying the planes structure isn't smart. It's hung around precisely because of the advantages of the airframe. Don't mess with a good thing. I would say maybe save weight by replacing panels with carbon fiber but after much thought I don't know how much that would save and how much it would gain the aircraft.

We have seen the prevailing mentality of upgrades with other aircraft.
The F-15 was introduced in 1976. The original design was a hot rod of an aircraft, setting almost a dozen time to climb records with the "Streak Eagle" project. On one flight the plane reached almost 99,000 feet in 3 minutes and 28 seconds. I calculated the speed of the plane at around 1,000 feet per second in a near vertical climb. Now - 40 years later - there's the F-15SE. An F-15 with newer engines and external conformal fuel tanks (known way back as the "FastPak" system) and all sorts of crap hung on the plan. Supposedly more stealthy but no longer the dominant dog fighting jet it was.

The F-16 started out as a relatively cheap superiority fighter that would supplement the more expensive F-15. An unorthodox (at the time) design that proved to be highly maneuverable. The USAF Thunderbirds don't use the aircraft just because it looks pretty! But it do suffers form a lack of a worthy replacement and so has been "upgraded" with more weight and equipment so that it can't even turn inside a Mig-29.

The F-18 is the most obvious. Starting out as the YF-17 lightweight competitor against the YF-16, it was a really unorthodox design, though it didn't quite meet the demanded specs (at the time). But the Navy was looking for a lightweight fighter to supplement its F-14 Tomcats, and the YF-17 design was much more adaptable to the Navy's needs. It was so redesigned it was given a new designation - the F/A-18. Much heavier than the YF-17, it proved extremely agile and adaptable. The Blue Angels fly it. I've seen them, and have since gained alot of respect for the F-18. Well, over the years more demands have been demanded of it so the F-18A has been enlarged and upgraded to the F-18C. Then the Tomcats were retired, and the Navy was left without a frontline heavy hitter. So they "upgraded" to F-18 again to the E Super Hornet. There's no way it can equal what the F-14 did, but, what can they do? Make it larger again, which needed bigger engines, which required extensive redesign of the intakes and rear end, and thus heavier landing gear. And it loses most of it's original advantages!

With the A-10, it doesn't need to be faster, or carry more bombs, or more durable. Just build more of them!