As plane pr0n enthusiasts, you’ve probably seen this.
But have you seen this?
The beast was built around the gun.
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It’s a Size ThingBy lex, on October 26th, 2010
61 comments to It’s a Size Thing |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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Been a while. Sorta puts things in perspective, eh?
Very nice ^.^
wow, nice, is the drum in the back of the gun what holds the ammo?
You got it buddy. For more info follow the link Russ included below.
As an added note, the M61 Vulcan series in the Hornet and CIWS mounts all have a very similar setup. If a bit smaller
Most excellant, the cases are held in the drum after firing. Apparently, the gases expelled from firing were enough of a hazard, they didn’t want to add a bunch of Aluminum hulls to the mix. Does the 20mm function in the same manner?
One bad ass gun.
Now, let’s bolt the one to the roof of the other.
why would you bolt a VW to the roof of an A-10?
Man can we do like the WII Luftwaffe wanted to do with some of their planes and build an A-10Z? The Z=Zwilling, for twin. Use two A-10 fuselages with a new center wing, third engine, and two of these lovely guns. Kinda like the F-82 Twin Mustang. But with much more bite.
Alas, the first time you fired one of the two Avengers, the whole plane would slew wildly sideways.
As Paul points out below, they had to put the Avenger on the centerline of the plane.
I think you meant to say “they had to put the plane on the centerline of the Avenger.”
Actually, I think they offset the plane sideways to adjust for .. hold on, my A-10 book is in the head, Nope, they offset the landing gear to allow for the centerline gun position, and the firing barrel is located along the center line at the nine oclock position which centers the firing barrel along the center axis. Lost a plane to own fire when the propellant gasses took the engines off while test firing. Yeah, I have been fond of this aircraft since the early ’80′s, when witnessed a guard aircraft flying through the hills surrounding the airport in Augusta, Maine. Finally, found the book at the well reccomended Coronado Library book and flower sale. Those retired Adm and aviators have some great books.
I stand corrected…
If you stand in front of a parked A-10, you’ll notice that the nose gear is offset, to keep the gun on the centerline. I was working at the Grumman transonic/hypersonic wind tunnel facility at Republic (we bought it from them) during the A-10 development. We used to laugh at the Tweets they used as chase planes laboring through in noise powered takeoffs, followed by the comparatively silent A-10 using about 1/4 the runway.
Paul, was that at the Republic plant in Farmingdale, NY?
That’s the one. They sold their wind tunnel facility to Grumman, so we had an enclave on the edge of the Republic property with transonic, supersonic and hypersonic tunnels. We used to watch the A-10 flights from the roof of the building.
The hypersonic tunnel wasn’t in use when I was there (mid 70s) – it had last been used to support the Space Shuttle proposal. No idea what became of the facility, following the various mergers. The hypersonic tunnel should be considered a National resource – there were only two or three in the country (it had a twin at NASA/Ames).
I live near there. I don’t know about the wind tunnel facility but the field is now a small airport. One of the old hangers is now a museum of WWII aircraft. They have a nice collection.
I’ve always wondered why the Marines didn’t buy any of these. It’s right up their alley. How much would it take to make these carrier-ready? If they have such a short takeoff, would it have been possible to give them catapult capability for LHA/LHDs?
Just musing….
Jeff, the big kids in the AF absolutely hate ‘em and have tried to retire them all more than once. –doesn’t fit the “fast mover” image dontcha know. Although I’m AF I’ve always said give them all to the Marines who would dearly love and truly appreciate their new toys. Then, as I’ve said here numerous times before, I’d buy the Frogfoot from the Russki’s (It’s got the long legs the AF big kids are always bitching the A-10 doesn’t have and near supersonic speed to get to the tgt area in a hurry that is also cited as an A-10 draw-back) put our engines & electronics in it and give it to the AF and its Navalized version to the Navy for CAS as well just to keep everybody happy. It’s got a decent twin 30mm gun and a titanium tub just like the Hog. If we did all that we’d have a damned decent cas capability for pennies on the dollar.
It never work for the Marines. It would be easier to start with a clean sheet than to try to navalize the Hog.
Give ‘em to the Army. They’d take ‘em in a heart beat. I’m all for producing an equivalent for the Marines too.
I’m with that, but the Army isn’t supposed to have tactical fixed wing aircraft. It would question the AF raison d’etere. Can’t have that, politically. Or else they’ve be the AAF.
A-4M–}OA-4M Do likewise with the A-10. Army loves armed observation aircraft, and it’s been a while since the OV-1 had a worth successor.
I’d combine current Army Aviation with the TacAir starch wings and call it the Army Air Corps. I’d even give them their song back.
The AF doesn’t like CAS unless it gives them money for other things in the package. The Army has groused for years, and it’s righteous, folks, that the AF doesn’t like CAS. They’ll accept the F-15E, or the F-16 because they can be used to do what the AF likes doing. If they had their way, the big bombers, ICBMs, big trash haulers, and the F-22 would be all they had to worry about.
I’d be fine with that. Just give the TacAir, including the C-130s and the C-27s that are coming, to the Army in a revitalized Air Corps and both would be happy.
I’d bring back Pinks and Greens and then draft VX as ground exec for an A-10 group. We’ll put his office near the Class 6 store and insure it had a good stock of Barbancourt as well.
The Marines would love them, even if they had to abandon their amphibious-ness to use them. Not that that matters currently, and not that that matters with the current “joint” emphasis.
Hell Jeff, they’d use ‘em just like their Harriers in Kuwait–on a normal hard runway just like the AF–or like the 1st MAW did at DaNang with F-4s. Marines have ALWAYS had a large ground-based aviation component.
So Why TF didn’t they grab this?
My cousin’s husband flew the A10 and later transitioned to the F16. He liked both planes a lot for different reasons. But he loved the A10 particularly when it was time to go to the firing range.
VX, the “big kids in the AF” hate them, but the pilots that fly them and those they provide the CAS to LOVE them. Slow, but accurate with tons of armament, long loiter times, and that damn big gun.
Right after the Hog’s IOC, I was lucky enough to take the TAC Hog Show and Tell group island hopping around the Pacific to give all the PACAF bases demos on the capability of the a/c. We hauled ground equipment, spare pilots, ground crew and mx spares in the C-141 while a C-130 Duckbutt provided nav and air rescue coverage. With the blinding speed of the A-10, we would allow them to takeoff before us, leisurely load their ground equipment, take a coffee break, flight plan our flight, take another coffee break, etc,
then takeoff, pass them enroute and land in plenty of time to offload their equipment in time to recover them on the next island in the chain. Slow going, but the gun demos were very impressive.
As to that titanium bathtub?…….the pilots told us that it wasn’t quite as impressive as you’d imagine after you’d flown the a/c for awhile. Seems they soon realized that they spent as much time rolled canopy down as they did upright as they flew daisy chains around their targets. Bullets bounce off from below, but have a tendency to enter the canopy and rattle around INSIDE the bathtub when they were rolled inverted! Still, each and every one of them LOVED the aircraft and it’s mission.
Well, yes, zipper, the “round inside the tub” bit was one of the very first criticisms made by those in the AF not exactly enamored with the A-10. One of my best friends in F-4Ds in the UK–both of us direct from combat tours in SEA (who was later CO of the Red-Flag Aggressor SQ at Nellis and then managed to homestead for 15 yrs as the USAF advisor to the Louisiana Air Nat. Guard–doing NOTHING but fly fighters–no command & staff schools or Pentagon tours–nada–and still retire as an O-6, lol) was one of its biggest and earliest critics: “What happens when that round bounces around and takes out the seat even if not you?” he would say…
(Scratches head)
But, virgil, how many times has that happened in real world experience?
Well, I’ve been out of the active jungle-drums loop a long time, Casey, but I’d wager never or we’d have heard about it. But early on it WAS one of the talking points for those pre-disposed not to like the A-10 anyway–and of course always a real world possibility. But experience would seem to indicate it’s low on the *probability* scale..
problem is the size, especially the wing. Big, heavy, fragile folding gear wouldn’t be too nice either.
Right, there would have to be compromises, for the same reason Navy and Marine aircraft aren’t *quite* as good as the equivalent AF stuff in the air. Folding wings and strong landing gear (for example) add weight, and weight is the enemy.
Still, with the performance envelope required for the mission, it wouldn’t be that hard to create a Marine version. Even if it is a CVN-only aircraft.
J.T., to provide a sense of size perspective, the A-10 is bigger than the WWII AAF 6-man crew North American B-25 Mitchell *Medium* bomber. lol.
Go read John Donovan’s blog (and comments) for the explanation.
http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/10/more_dusty_pr0n_1.html
Our local Air Guard unit flies A-10s. Our CAP cadet unit got a lecture one time from a couple of pilots that had been over in Iraq during the first days of the war. Amazing stuff about how they orbited over convoys and persuaded the bad guys to leave them alone. Talk about close air support.
When I was stationed at Plattsburgh AFB in the mid-80′s, we had FB-111′s as our normal airplane. On takeoff in full burner, it was one of the loudest airplanes in the inventory.
I once watched a pair of transient Hogs take off headed for who-know-where. I could barely hear them even though they were taking off in formation – it was just a “buzz” instead of a thunderous roar.
Quiet and deadly – it’s a lethal combination.
“Built around a gun” sums it up pretty well.
The tail of the plane must be propped up if the GAU-8 “Avenger” gatling is removed, since losing all that weight forward moves the center of gravity behind the tricycle landing gear.
As Paul notes, the gun is on the centerline. This is for balance reasons. Supposedly when the gun is firing and fully up to speed it provides as much thrust backwards as one of the engines does forward. A pilot reported that firing the gun is like encountering a major headwind.
The gun is such a beast its also used as part of the GoalKeeper Close-In-Weapons ship anti-missile defence system.
As virgil notes, the AF reportedly hates the A-10. If not for the plane’s spectacular performance in Gulf War I (including two air-to-air shootdowns) it would have been retired from inventory as scheduled. The US Army, strangely enough, is rumored to be more than willing for the Air Force to abandon the plane, as long as the Army gets to fly it instead.
I’ve never met a Hog pilot that didn’t love the plane, and the mission for which it was built. Not sure they would care what uniform they had to wear as long as they could fly the Hog.
The gun, awesome as it is, is only part of the story. The airframe was built for survivability. Starting with the ‘titanium bathtub” the pilot sits in, to the ability to fly the plane with no hydraulic pressure, to the landing gear that drops down backwards so wind resistance will lock it into place, it’s all about performing the mission and returning alive.
That gave the squadrons in Gulf War I the ability to get down low and give Schwarzkopf the intelligence on the Iraqi Republican Guards he demanded.
Then there’s the other ordnance as shown. During Gulf War I the infrared guided Hellfire missiles on the wings gave the pilots a primitive night fighting capability, which let two squadrons of A-10s switch over to night ops. It was “like looking through a soda straw”, but they made it work.
The Army told the Af they would be glad tot ake the Hog off their hands, seeing as how they didn’t want it but the grunts loved it. The AF’s knee jerk reaction to that was to keep the things after all.
The key West agreement needs to be voided. Let the AF do what it wants, which is the strategic stuff. Let them have the C5s, C17s,and F-22s and let the Army keep the rest. Even the AF would be happier.
I remember the second PIC from an Aviation magazine in the 70s when the thing was being developed. They had a number of other pics, like the DU rounds penetrating an M-48 top to bottom. The incendiary effects were kinda neat.
Ahh, the days when I had great seats to live demo shows!
A classic case of “form follows function”.
There’s a new flight sim out, Digital Combat Simulator A-10C Warthog. They built a ‘real’ version for National Guard and used what they know to build this one. 600+ page manual for air to ground (natch), air to air (?), tanking (KC-135 included), friendly and opposition air. SAMs, ground fire, with realistic damage model. Still in beta release with updates coming out at about 2 week intervals. $60 and you’re gonna a need a HOTAS stick/throttle and TrackIR to do it right.
Like we don’t already have enough to get us into trouble with the War Dept.
My son and I refer to her as the “State Department, as envisioned by T. Roosevelt”.
lots of information here
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/a-10/
http://www.pats-world.com/gulfwar/
and the book reviewed here is a good one
http://www.historynet.com/the-warthog-and-the-close-air-support-debate-book-review.htm
cute story here
http://oldtrailmaster.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/toyota-a-10-warthog/
Does this mean that when I used to practice strafing trains in my Cessna-172 outside Baton Rouge while solo in AFROTC at LSU back in 64-65 they were unimpressed, Peterk?
Colonel Boyd strikes again…
Pierre Sprey actually. But one of the god fathers of the F-16. Was not a fan until Gulf war 1. Most of the critics didnt know what they were talking about, in service or out. Great for it’s mission. What will replace the A-10? Maybe another A-10. I always thought Frogfoot was a copy of the Northup A-9. There is no freaking way the F-35 will be able to replace the A-10. Not in survivability or store load out. Much less not having the big GAT.
Same engines as the S-3. Great endurance low and slow.
Hey, it’s a Thunderbolt. ’nuff said.
Somewhere, in the interwebs, is a picture of the Gun and some love for that gun and aircraft. Here’s a sanitized version of what it says:
Look at my Gatling gun. This is the kind of gun they used to put PLANES on. It wasn’t a case of “Oh, we got this jet fighter, it kinda needs something besides missiles, and bombs and (bad AF Word), let’s strap this thing on.” NO. It was a case of a guy making a gun SO awesome that he just stepped back and said “This (bad AF word) needs to fly.” And everyone else is like “You can’t make a gun fly! And the first guy is all like (bad AF words) yes I can. I will strap a PLANE to this GUN.” And everyone is like “You mean strap a gun to a plane?” and the first guy is like, “No, man. I am strapping the plane to the gun. The plane is an ACCESSORY’ And then everyone’s minds were blown. Like, there was some serious mind blowing going on there. Ears were bleeding….
Loved hearing them practice on Range 301 @ Graf.
Best,
Jake
Reminds me of a story from the development of the F-117. The radar engineers went to the aeronautical engineers with the “hopeless diamond” design and asked if it could fly. The aeronautical engineers tok one look at the stealth numbers and said “If it’s as stealthy as you say I’ll make it fly.”
That’s not far from the truth, Jake. They specified what they would need to kill tanks with an airborne gun, got the GAU-8 and had to build a plane around it.
The AF has done well with AC that were designed around a mission. The A-10 is such an AC, unlike Ac like the FB-111, and the soon to die F-35 (one can hope). It ain’t glamorous enough. Not enough like the AC the AF Generals dream of re-staging the raid on Regensberg.
FYI
Their community just got through
with Hawgsmoke 2010:
http://www.hawgsmoke.com/index.asp
A video:
http://www.dvidshub.net/video/97972/hawgsmoke-2010-10-competition
This thread is prolly done, but as a coda: Bell followed a very similar approach when they built the P-39 Airacobra. Alas, the AAC decided to yank the supercharger from the P-39, and turn it into a (shudder) pursuit craft.
Oddly enough, Wiki claims that the Airacobra was designed as an interceptor, which does not agree with other sources who state that the ‘Cobra was designed from the start as a ground-attack aircraft. Considering that Wiki also said that “It was the first fighter in history with a tricycle undercarriage” (heads up, Lockheed!), I’m not sure if I believe them. Yanking a supercharger from a ground-attack plane makes more sense than doing so for an interceptor.
The Russians, by the way, loved ‘em to death.
I recall the Army Air Force used the P-39/P-40 at Guadcanal. Less than effective in air to air, but kick ass on the deck knocking back the IJN surface forces during the day. do I recall correctly?
You do indeed. My info on the P-39 shows that it was originally built with a turbocharger as a high altitude interceptor. The cannon was supposed to bring down enemy bombers. Bell took the prototype to NACA for input on how to improve the design. Suggestions made included changes to the canopy, increasing the wing, and ditching the turbo in favor of a single stage supercharger to improve low altitude performance. The theory being that with a 37mm cannon, it would be better as an anti-tank aircraft. Below 10,000 feet, the Airacobra would out climb the Zero, but couldn’t out turn it.
Ah yes, the only mid-engined designed “aeroplane” with its own front car-doors. A true front-seat “coupe.”
Must’ve made bailouts pretty hairy what w. slipstream forces and all–even tho they could be jettisoned as I don’t think they had explosive bolts. Rolling inverted and falling out of the seat was NOT an option. Guys who decided to design the A-10 around the gun must have remembered the P-39.