A-10 THunderbolt Question

That's "my kind of jet." A single pilot square-winged, ridiculously overpowered, practically indestructible flying cannon with slow-speed performance to boot. Most airplanes which are "purpose built" are usually awesome.
 
Speed Pilot said:
It reloads into the drum doesn't it?
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It feeds back into the drum. The A-10, by design, uses the gun shells......expended or unexpended......as an integral part of its CG. If you look at the jet, the gun system as a whole extends from the tip of the barrels at the nose, under the cockpit, and all the way to the drum that goes back nearly to the wing leading edge. Due to the rear mounted engines and their weight/location, the ammunition within the gun helps keep the plane balanced. Whenever I went out in an A-10 with an empty gun, I had to have large iron counterweight plates bolted onto the left wall of the nose landing gear bay; the number bolted there depending on the ammo loadout.

It was part of the reason the proposed "FireHog" A-10 firefighting aircraft wouldn't work. It was to have a slurry tank mounted beneath the wing center section, and when full, the jet would be in CG. Problem is, as soon as it dropped it slurry load, the CG would shift aft and the jet would become uncontrollable, as there wasn't enough room in the nose area to place counterweights that would make up for the removed GAU-8 system. The slurry tank couldn't be mounted any further forward to compensate.
 
ppragman said:
That's "my kind of jet." A single pilot square-winged, ridiculously overpowered, practically indestructible flying cannon with slow-speed performance to boot. Most airplanes which are "purpose built" are usually awesome.
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WTF? Are you high or smoking crack?

51,000 MTOW, powered by two 8,900 lbs/thrust each TF-34s.

"Overpowered" has never been a descriptor of this jet.
 
MikeD said:
WTF? Are you high or smoking crack?

51,000 MTOW, powered by two 8,900 lbs/thrust each TF-34s.

"Overpowered" has never been a descriptor of this jet.
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Until now... ;)
That's still a hell of a lot more than I'm accustomed to. Its no F16, but any square-winged machine that's got the oomph to cruise 300KIAS is pretty damn impressive to me.
 
ppragman said:
Until now... ;)
That's still a hell of a lot more than I'm accustomed to. Its no F16, but any square-winged machine that's got the oomph to cruise 300KIAS is pretty damn impressive to me.
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Compared to a 207, I suppose. To us it was very underpowered. Although we made do with what we had. Remember, cruising at 300 KIAS was a fairly clean jet and at low level. Start hanging crap off of it, and putting it higher in altitude, such as air refueling, and it was pig city. Ask any tanker crew how much they hated having to service us, or worse, drag us across the Atlantic/Pacific.

The TF-34s were very weak, but very fuel efficient also. But besides us, only one other jet used that engine.
 
MikeD said:
Compared to a 207, I suppose. To us it was very underpowered. Although we made do with what we had. Remember, cruising at 300 KIAS was a fairly clean jet and at low level. Start hanging crap off of it, and putting it higher in altitude, such as air refueling, and it was pig city. Ask any tanker crew how much they hated having to service us, or worse, drag us across the Atlantic/Pacific.
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Now the real question: would you trade it for a Frogfoot?
 
ppragman said:
Now the real question: would you trade it for a Frogfoot?
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The -25 is a highly capable aircraft, and no slouch as a CAS platform. I personally wouldn't trade it; but then again I have a ton of respect for the Frogfoot, as it can and has taken a beating and survived, while also delivering one itself. That and it can run on damn near anything, from diesel to cooking oil, and carries it's own impressive array of munitions in an armored hull.

In a Europe scenario, Frogfoots of Frontal Aviation likely would've been the guys we'd have encountered enemy-aircraft wise. Them and Hinds/Havoc's/Hokum's.
 
MikeD said:
In a Europe scenario, Frogfoots of Frontal Aviation likely would've been the guys we'd have encountered enemy-aircraft wise. Them and Hinds/Havoc's/Hokum's.
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I remember reading about attack helos vs fighter air to air tests done in the early 80s that rudely suprised some F-16 jocks.
 
ppragman said:
I was under the impression that it had plenty of go-juice to boot - is that not the case?
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The Caravan blasts off like a rocket ..... until you load it up to max gross with fuel and cargo.

Same principle applies to all aircraft, even with F-16s. I was fascinated to read about the IAF raid on Sadam's nuclear plant, the F-16 were so overloaded they barely got into the air before running out of runway
 
USMCmech said:
I remember reading about attack helos vs fighter air to air tests done in the early 80s that rudely suprised some F-16 jocks.
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Heck, it rudely surprised us too. Helos aren't to be taken lightly, especially if encountered "by accident", to where you're already in the knife fight in the phone booth scenario right out the gate. Again, talking the Europe scenario vs Warsaw Pact forces, CAS Air teams (JAAT teams) would've been A-7 or A-10, coupled with AH-1/AH-64; likely encountering the same thing on the other side with SU-25/Mi-24/28 JAAT teams supported by KA-50s and an extreme amount of towed and self-propelled AAA weapons. At the height of the Cold War, in this scenario, the average A-10 pilot was expected to have a lifespan of 2 missions.
 
USMCmech said:
The Caravan blasts off like a rocket ..... until you load it up to max gross with fuel and cargo.

Same principle applies to all aircraft, even with F-16s. I was fascinated to read about the IAF raid on Sadam's nuclear plant, the F-16 were so overloaded they barely got into the air before running out of runway
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I remember reading that to do that mission they had to hot fuel the airplanes before takeoff and they only had a few minute window to depart or they would be bingo to early. Pretty ballsy stuff.
 
MikeD said:
Heck, it rudely surprised us too. Helos aren't to be taken lightly, especially if encountered "by accident", to where you're already in the knife fight in the phone booth scenario right out the gate. Again, talking the Europe scenario vs Warsaw Pact forces, CAS Air teams (JAAT teams) would've been A-7 or A-10, coupled with AH-1/AH-64; likely encountering the same thing on the other side with SU-25/Mi-24/28 JAAT teams supported by KA-50s and an extreme amount of towed and self-propelled AAA weapons. At the height of the Cold War, in this scenario, the average A-10 pilot was expected to have a lifespan of 2 missions.
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Of course if the Warsaw Pact countries decided to get a little excitable, they'd all have probably been glowing in the dark before they could have had the opportunity to launch barring a "Red Storm Rising" sort of scenario.
 
MikeD said:
Compared to a 207, I suppose. To us it was very underpowered. Although we made do with what we had. Remember, cruising at 300 KIAS was a fairly clean jet and at low level. Start hanging crap off of it, and putting it higher in altitude, such as air refueling, and it was pig city. Ask any tanker crew how much they hated having to service us, or worse, drag us across the Atlantic/Pacific.

The TF-34s were very weak, but very fuel efficient also. But besides us, only one other jet used that engine.
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S-3 Viking ;)
 
ppragman said:
Of course if the Warsaw Pact countries decided to get a little excitable, they'd all have probably been glowing in the dark before they could have had the opportunity to launch barring a "Red Storm Rising" sort of scenario.
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As would we have. With nukes....even tactical ones.....when one flies, they all fly.
 
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