They actually fixed that issue by putting the starter on a timer. So now once the trigger is pulled the starter engages every like 5 seconds i think@@derriklest2161
@phaethonprime3790. I regret I never served in our nations military. You did. God bless you. I believe , from what I've read and seen on the internet that the Iraqis referred to the A10 as ''The Monster''. I remember one US veteran who said "Having an A10 show up in a fire fight is like having your big brother show up in a street fight''.
@@tomdodds8091 And the reason it carries so little ammunition for the gun is that 18 seconds (IIRC) of sustained fire of the cannon is enough to drop the plane out of the sky due to lack of lift. Once again, IIRC, they only kit it with 3-5 seconds of ammunition and just strap eleven gajillion (only scientific numbers, here) bombs to it for anything that survives the first pass or two. The only thing that competes with its lethality in the air is the amount of insurance claims it makes of our own people. Granted, that number has actually gone down with improved targeting tech and better intel.
@@AdeptusCaeiusIII I've seen several times where people who should know refute that claim about the gun firing too long causing the airframe to lose lift, but I'm not an engineer in any of the aero related fields, so I'm not going to argue it one way or the other. I understand the concept, and can't say it isn't valid.
@@yuningsun6914 lol ah the GAUSS. Nothing more terrifying than to hear that at 0400 doing practice runs. I miss seeing those birds at the crack of dawn. The zipper sound you hear is your body unzipping itself in half if you hear that heading towards you.
My platoon and I were pinned down by a superior enemy force. We called for ariel support, and cheered when we heard those beautiful engines screaming. They stayed with us until the coast was clear. God bless those flying grunts (the pilots) and the Warthogs.
as a USAF vet, we are proud to keep these winged tanks going to protect you folks in the dirt. we dont like leaving anyone behind either, so we keep this machine around to make sure you can get yourselves out when the time comes. glad you made it home brother!
@@nowthatsjustducky Saint BurrrrrAP! Specticals,Testicular, Wallet and Watch thank God! St Bert the Gaurding Angel flies over head and not to picky about pronunciation is a Hail Mary prayer to get home on your feet and not in a box under a flag. I got one leg and not even mad about it. If the angry bees don't get you the rock chips will and then Burrap! silence. Beautiful graveyard quality silence. Then his cousins the Arch Angels fly in to attend the wounded. Valks for the still living.
So u know my Brit friend at 10:46 where the pilot put the nose nearly straight up. He was doing 1 of 2 things. #1 rapidly dumping speed to get more accurate weapons on target, or #2 showing the jets INABILITY TO STALL. This plane was built in such a way that it can maintain lift at EXTREMELY LOW SPEEDS. Nearly as slow as a helicopter and the A-10 can not only maintain lift but still turn on a dime and give 9 cents change. She was designed to do that.
I know a number of years back the air force tried to retire the A10 and the marines said we'll take it. The air force said we will keep it. The grunts love it.
@@devildog17013 The only issue I could think of is that they are not carrier capable. Which would seriously hinder where and when they could be used by the Corps.
Plenty of USMC aircraft flying from the beach that carrier capability is not that big of an issue, though I would argue that the Army should get them, and not the Corps.@@michaelmartin4552
@@devildog17013 Plus I can see the division in the Wing now. After all, no need to make Naval Aviators of the pilots who will never land or take off from carriers. I can see infighting there between the Hog pilots, and all the others who are Naval Aviators and carrier rated.
Capt. Kim Campbell, the pilot featured in the video who successfully brought in her damaged A-10 retired as a Colonel. She was known as ‘Killer Chick’.
Here we go again with the leftist BS. If you’re so gung ho for women to be combat troops, then how would you like it if our entire military was female only?
the thing is a friend of my dad worked in the designing group for the warthog. its basicly that the plane was build around the gun. and he said once: if you hear the gun you werent the target. this plane is an absolute unit.
So very true. The rounds are supersonic (Mach 3 muzzle velocity), so if you're in the target area all of a sudden everything goes to hell around you, and only then (if you somehow survived) do you hear the "brrrrrrt" from the aircraft.
@@moesizzlik5545😂 why? Someone has to fly and manage them. Its not weird at all for someone who did for over a decade to watch a clip about those aircrafts. Actually, id think it relatively common.
LMFAO...welp, they can take plenty to share. 😁 what was shown, wasn't even the closest to what one looks like fully decked out at top take off weight. 🤫
@@pop9095 I was the doofus who simply walked in, dropped some candies on the teacher's desk, and then passed them out to the rest of the class. Her eyes lit right up as soon as she saw them, and she just said "Thank you," as she unwrapped one.
I was driving a bright red and white dual tank 750 gallon propane delivery truck in Texas cotton fields in the early 80’s supplying fuel for the irrigation pumps. The glossy white tanks on my truck were about 20 feet long and about 5 feet in diameter, frequently parked for extended periods of time in the middle of a big field of a vivid green cotton plantation, making it perfect for target practice. One of the pilots came in the station where I worked and spoke with me about the truck and asked me about the radio it had. Shortly afterwards, I started getting buzzed by A-10s while I was making deliveries. It’s a shame that portable video cameras were still so big and expensive in those days. I could have recorded some amazing footage of the practice runs they were making over my head. Even though they were only making practice runs over me, they still gave me chills every time they passed overhead. The A-10 Warthog quickly became one of my favorite aircraft after that.
These awesome aircraft fly over my home almost daily. As a marine in my late 50’s it’s a fond memorize of seeing these in combat. I’m grateful to several A-10 pilots during my time in service. Now I watch the new generation of pilots flying around my home in the country.
As a Marine Veteran who has heard the sound of that gun, it is a sound you wont forget, but it also tells you that you are not the target. That aircraft has saved and will save many 1000's of lives.
Last fall, a hurricane was headed toward Florida, so the military moved jets around. I live 50 or so miles south of Wright Patterson Air Force Base and I was so lucky to see two A-10's flying at very low altitude, fly right over my house. I've always loved the Warthog, and seeing two in flight was amazing.
I used to see these guys fly over us where I lived here in IN. You didn't hear them until they were on top of you. One time my son was out in the yard when 3 flew over us and literally scared him to crying. He was only 3 at the time. We would see these guys at least twice a week. One time they flew over I waved at them and I could see the pilot wave back. That's how low they flew. Awesome!
I was with 10th Mountain in 89 training in Ft Pickett VA when a pair of A-10's from Virginia Air National Guard did a low pass over our company on the road at 6am. I told the guys in my squad that we'd all be dead if that was the enemy... they truly are deadly AF.
@@sharkymcshizzle7372 we are proud to fight along side you folks! you can count on the "chair force" to bring the thunder if you're ever stuck in a tight spot. we dont like leaving folks behind
We have a lake house in N IN and they still fly in pairs around there all the time on weekends. One time in the fall when my brother and myself were burning leaves, I was tending a pile, and one screamed by to our right maybe 100ft above the surface of the lake. Right at the moment we both looked over at it, the second one flew right over the top of us just barely over the top of the trees. We looked at each other and I told him "We're dead." They were doing practice runs using the smoke from the burning leaves as the target and the first A-10 was a distraction. I've also seen them doing the same thing with grain silos on farms in the area up there.
Speaking as an old grunt, I will say that every ground pounder looks at the A10 as the most beautiful death machine in existence. Every time I heard the distinctive whine of those massive engines, i KNEW the way was clear. God bless our A10 pilots! Keep on keeping my brothers and sisters alive.
I saw 2 of these beasts of the air in 1985 while working on a house roof in the Yorkshire Dales UK. They came screaming up the valley on a training run, the earth shook they were so low over the top of us I just about filled my pants. Loved them ever since and love to see them out training and at air shows. Great aircraft.
I served in the U.S. army for 11 years, 3 of which were in Germany. My unit was at a training area when I had the opportunity to watch A-10’s on a live-fire range a one point, and what I observed shook me to my core. As these A-10’s rolled in on a gun-run the sound that came from the 30mm main gun scared the crap out of me! On most videos, like yours, the sound that you hear is higher pitched that what you hear in person. I don’t know that I can accurately describe the actual sound that this cannon makes, but I will try to paint a picture for you. What you hear in real life is of a much lower pitch, like when someone burps, but it is a long, prolonged burp that echoed throughout the canyon we were in, watching this happen. The sound was at such a low pitch, everyone watching could feel the “growl” that this cannon makes reverberate throughout their body. It was so impressive and absolutely frightening at the same time. It absolutely sent shivers through my body and I remember just thinking how frightened the enemy would be to see that aircraft rolling in on them, and then hearing that chain-gun open up on them. I actually felt sorry for any enemy that would come up against this aircraft. It was one of the most frightening sounds I have ever heard!!! I am not kidding!
I also saw a live fire exercise, I think the gun sounded like a giant sheet of canvas being ripped.Some came back from the 1991 Gulf war with lots of battle damage. Russians called it the Devil's cross. They were in two RAF bases in England, Alconbury and Bentwaters.
I was stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB as an EC-130 crew chief. There was one night when we were doing a full power maintenance engine run and I was in the cockpit/flight deck when one of our A-10s came in with an In-Flight Emergency (IFE) for an unsafe gun. They parked the aircraft on a taxiway near the north end of the runway, not too far from where our ramp was, then put a huge barrier pad up in front of it while they tried to clear it. We could hear the round discharge while running the engines on our own bird. I agree with you. It was a much lower pitched - and loud - "BOOOM!!" type sound that I recall hearing than what videos always seem to suggest. I'd almost equate it more to the sound of a bomb going off, or maybe even a 12-gauge shotgun type sound.
Was in the USAF and our Commander always said "Our true mission is to put warhead on forehead", I always loved that saying because it put our true mission in prospective.
My favorite fact is that the gun mounted on the front has such high recoil that it actually slows the jet down. I think it produces more force backwards than a single one of its engines does forwards. You lose more than half of your thrust while firing. Its not a jet with a big gun, its a gun with wings.
its not really the recoil force that prevents them from firing longer bursts from the gun. during early testing of the gun, the cloud of gases released from the gun tended to choke the engines out as they flew through it, so to prevent losing engine thrust they limit the gun to short bursts.
@@Knightfang1 They never said it prevented them from firing the gun in long bursts, just that the force of the recoil is roughly equal to the thrust of one of the engines, which is true.
Initial design only had one engine, but the front gun has so much recoil that it almost brought the plane to a stop. They added the second engine to keep it flying.
Fun fact I believe the technicians calculated the recoil from the gun and said if it was pointed aft and had a limitless ammo supply the plane would fly without engines.
When I was a teen in the 80s and mowing a field for my dad, one day I suddenly heard something crazy loud and then suddenly 2 A-10s flew low right over the top of me. Consider that I was in an enclosed cab, loud AF tractor and all I could hear were A-10 engines. I also quickly realized that I probably had just played "tank" for them as they flew overhead. 😉
lmao...I'm guessing...you are correct. At that moment, you were a T-72 or T-90 MBT. at least until they passed you, then you went back to being a lawn tractor. LOL 🤔😁🤣
I was deer hunting in a super high tree stand on a tall ridge. I was just getting my stuff together to climb down. Two A-10s came buzzing the tree line of the ridge. They banked right above me and me and the pilot made direct eye contact. As he banked I felt wind and heat from the jet engine. Was soooo loud and crazy I almost fell out of tree stand. Will never forget
Had a friend who's brother was an A10 pilot. The thing really is a beast. The point is that it actually flies slow enough to put more ordinance on the target yet fast enough to get the hell out of trouble if necessary.
it bears mentioning, the one mentioned was not the worst damaged one that returned to base. one in desert storm lost most of a wing, and came back requiring full right stick to keep it flying level. the other two comments made about their speed are they were originally made without navigation, because the pilot could roll down the window and ask for directions, and the cockpits are armored against birdstrike on the back.
I love that he keeps reacting to the crackling as the sound of the gun. Little does he realize that its the sound of the rounds hitting the target. The target is usually dead by the time the famous "brrrrrrt" is heard XD
@@kevinexline5392 completely true. the muzzle velocity of that cannon is insanely high. you go splat way before everyone else hears the fart going off. but, the sound of the fart is enough to send many enemy combatants running, because they dont want to be next
I'm in Missouri and have been out on local lakes of few times when a10s fly over super low on training flights. Last Summer we were floating behind a boat and one flew over super low, the pilot tipped his wing and gave us a thumbs up It was so cool.
There isn't a ground troop that I know of that doesn't love this plane and the people that fly it. To this day, it is still one of the best close air support planes flying.
In 1982 I was in the USAF and I had a neighbor at home who joined the army. He related to me once when we were both home on leave, that during war games, his unit took care of every threat but the A-10. He said they never heard it coming.
you were asking how long the A-10 was expected to be in service.. The SR-71 Blackbird was taking pictures of license plates from 10,000 feet up in the Vietnam war and since it has been retired twice but they keep bringing it back because it's replacement "isn't good enough".
I am 45 years old, and all I can say, being a civilian... is that I continually hear news about them attempting to retire this aircraft. Then the "grunts" or ground troops pretty much say what they have to say about support and all of them say they want the A-10 above them if they need help. Sure, we got the AC130 and other bombers, a few close support aircraft, but again, from this end, I hear the ground troops calling for the A10 to stay in service. So far, it's still here.
I was hearing that 12 years ago when I was still in and controlled their exercise airspace. Just a bunch of whiney politicos bitching about their maintenance costs. Literally saw one land with one engine. That thing's a beast, may it forever fart in the skies.
we in the USAF (im a vet) absolutely love our flying tank. we know how valuable it is when the crap really hits the fan for those ground troops when things go wrong. we dont like leaving people behind, so we want to keep that beast around in order to make sure everyone gets out when they need to. until they come up with something better, we will try to keep the A10 on the roster. so far, nothing has come close to the capabilities of it, even though it's been around for 50+ years.
@@ghomerhust First, thank you for your service. Also, thanks for words confirming what I have always heard from the civilian end. I love that plane, even if the only use I get out of it is in video games and news that makes it back to us on various media platforms.
@@ghomerhust Yup, created in the 70's, and there has been no other aircraft to match it's capabilities since. Sadly the Air Force has tried to axe the Hog a couple of times. Thankfully during this war they have seen the capabilities, and looking at the startup costs, designing, prototyping, etc. They have decided to upgrade the Hog instead of replacing it. I think they are extending it to 2050 with the upgrades. I haven't heard anything on how the new Hog will handle from the old Hog yet though.
Best time i've seen an A-10, was out in middle Michigan with some friends trail riding off road. the trails circled an artillery and strike range that the National Guard used for training. lucky for us the day we were out there a pair of A-10's were practicing strike runs at targets at the range. the pilots saw us parked on the trail watching them so they changed there attack approaches to fly right over head and just as they cleared us, would open up with the cannon and rockets. better than any fireworks show i have ever seen. they did this multiple times before moving on.
They used to use my house as a target point. One would fly right over the house, turn in the bean field behind the house and come right back over it. I could see the pilot in the cockpit as he made the turn. It was AWESOME !!
You're gonna be jealous! I live within 5 miles of a US Air Force Base, near Macon GA. Several A-10 Warthogs are stationed there, and I see them flying in pairs over my home all the time! Very exciting to see a plane that is great at protecting my country flying low over my home!
Those A-10 you thought were flying over New Mexico were actually flying over Arizona. There are A-10 stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. Used to see them all the time cause the runway they use have them flying over my old job near daily.
During operation, "desert storm," an A-10 returned to base with 2/3 of a wing missing, 1 engine not working, and loads of holes caused by anti-aircraft rounds and shrapnel.
Army base near here used to open Cannon Range to public once a year, bring lawn chair, cooler, sit and watch A-10s do their thing. They would come in just over tree tops and rip that cannon, you couldn't help but jump even with ear plugs in. They would have other jets do runs, but the A-10 was the crowd favorite. A retired pilot told me they can only fire it for a few seconds at a time cause the recoil will actually stop the plane.
October 1977. First time in service. Another nearly 50 year old plane kept viable with upgrades and new tech. While in the Pa National Guard I would often see these "absolute beasts" shooting at their impact area at The Gap. [FIG] And yes, if the plane fires it's main gun to long it will lose air speed velocity because the recoil of the gun slows the plane
I was in the Army at a training center in California. My unit and others were mock fighting against the training force that trains there. One day, during a mock exercise, there was an opposition aircraft (A-10) attacking areas on the battlefield. This one A-10 flew towards our area of operation, flipped upside down over the outside of our AO. When it got to the middle of our area the pilot turned the A-10 on its side dropped a flare (missle) in the middle of us and before leaving our area banked in a different direction of travel. We were baffled in the precision and accuracy of the A-10. After that day seeing an A-10 in action.We knew why the world feared the Warthog. Never will forget that day.
Years ago I lived with my grandparents 40 min south of Douglas AZ. I Spent about a month helping to build a fence around Pops 40 acres. A-10's doing maneuvers would fly over nearly every day. 2, 4 even 6 of them at a time. At random a F-16 or two would dogfight with them. I'd bring a 5x8 American flag. Then wave it like mad, and be rewarded by very low-level (a few hundred feet?) fly-bys. Wing rocks and even salutes from pilots. I will never forget it! Plus I got a break from digging fence posts in the ground as hard as concrete. RIP Grandpop........
From 1983 - 1986, I was stationed in England, and we had 6 squadrons of A-10s. It was the largest tactical fighter wing in the USAF and it was all A-10s.
I went around and around with some numbskull about one of the A-10's main jobs which is a a tank killer. It was specifically made to kill Russian tanks. He claimed the main gun couldnt puncture tank armor. The stupidity was mind boggling. I told him to look it up and never heard from him again.
Couldn't penetrate tank armor? He might have been right - if the GAU-8 were a single-fire weapon. But then, some of those pointy things under the wings... you know, missiles? ... probably could do a pretty good job even on the new Russian Terminator tank.
Some areas on a tank can't be penetrated by the gun. There's an A-10 pilots "colouring book" that shows the effective areas that pilots need to shoot for. It's a fun read :D
My brother said the A10 was one of the infantry's favorite ground support air craft. He said you can feel it in your chest from almost a mile away when they open up with the 30mm.
Never told you about the sound of it firing. The first chunky sound is the bullets raining hell upon the earth, the second BVVVVVVRRRRTTTT was from the gun firing. The rounds are supersonic, so they hit the ground a fair bit faster than the speed of sound and thus you hear the impact before the gun. If you can live to hear the BRRT, the target you weren't
5:42 you can find an interview she gave on another veteran RU-vid channel on that incident and how she managed to get back safely. Insane. That woman is a badass.
Just learned a few things about it I didn't know. The 30mm sits to the left of the center and fires from the pilot's 3 O'clock position. Keeps the shell casings to help with weight distribution. Front landing gear isn't centered like other aircraft. It sits to the right of the center.
Keeping casings is also quite common in anything above man-portable weapons because the casings are expensive. And in aircraft it keeps them from falling on friendlies.
It always amazes me that there were people in the Air Force that wanted to phase it out because it was "outdated". Its tough, it can kill anything, and the people on the ground love it.
You can thank John Boyd for assisting with the design of this awesome plane. He was a pilot who had the pilot’s survival in mind when designing the cockpit and past experiences when designing the armaments. It was a killing machine.
10:44 I believe that maneuver is a "rear slip" or "dynamic deceleration", in extreme executions it is also known as the 'Cobra Maneuver". There are also side slips, and forward slips. A 'slip' is an aerodynamic condition of uncoordinated flight in which an aeroplanes motion is somewhat sideways to airflow. Uncoordinated describes the state of the aircrafts orientation to the airflow, and does not imply the aircraft is in an uncontrollable state. Coordinated flight means you are maintaining and orientation directly into oncoming airflow, using rudders, ailerons, and elevators to do so, for instance keeping your altitude and speed in a turn. You are coordinating the controls with the airflow to affect a change in direction or altitude (without 'fighting' the airflow). A side slip is what we see jet liners doing coming in to land with a crosswind. Also known as a 'crab walk'. Or when a aircraft banks and sort of slides sideways instead of actually turning (more or less sliding across the lift force generated by the wings). A forward slip can be used when landing when needing to exchange speed for altitude (if one is high and too fast for instance. Not commonly used on jet liners,, it should be pointed out...). The plane effectively pitches the nose down harder than usual exposing more of the top on the planes profile to oncoming air, basically acting as an air break and burning off speed faster than it loses altitude. That 'rear slip' or 'dynamic deceleration' is effectively the opposite of the forward slip where, as seen in the video, an aircraft noses up hard faster than the aircraft can alter its direction through the air (in the A-10s case, thanks to having 2 big honking turbofans pointed over the elevators directing the jet wash up, pushing the tail down), thus it 'slips' its direction of motion relative to the direction its pointing exchanging airspeed while maintaining altitude (mostly). Yes I am a nerd. No I am not fun at parties.
I've seen a 'Cobra Maneuver' at an air show ages ago. An F-18 Hornet came in low over the tarmac, then reared up its nose by almost 90°, then snapped forward, like, well, like a cobra. I've seen video of a Russian fighter- I forget make & model- pull the angle of attack PAST 90°, before pitching forward. An absolutely unreal maneuver to see in real life. Planes just should not do these things. And the latest generations of fighter craft, with rotating exhaust nozzles, have both broken, then re-wrote, the rules of air combat.
in the 90s,I was stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and worked with the three different A-10 Squadrons on station. The A-10 and the P-51 Mustang are my two favorite aircraft ever made.
Desert scenes probably shot around Tucson AZ. The Air Force does A-10 training there and you see them flying around all the time. They are upgrading the existing planes by putting completely new wings on the craft.
Royal Marine huh? Badass. Thanks for your service. Got out of the USAF in 2006. I miss it. I was stationed at Pope AFB. A10s and C130s were stationed at our base. We'd regularly hear the brrrrrrt from the massive gun during practice and testing. Sounded like AMERICA.
I live in a city with a large military airport. One forth of July we had a air show and the A10 made a appearance. The pilot was on hand to talk as well. My favorite military planes.
Btw, I was a US Marine that trained with you guys. Royal Marines kick ass! You guys rock. Also, I love London. The food, the people... just everything. - Amazing city.
Was my dream to fly one of these when I was growing up. Grew up in the shadow of USAFA had everything lined up, congressman appointment letter and everything, then torn my Achilles tendon, complete rupture and ended my hopes and dreams in an instant. She was always my favorite aircraft, such a thing of beauty.
You need to watch the whole story of her flight. Not only did she take that bad damage, but wouldnt leave the area until the ground troops was able to get out. Good video.
It boggles the mind to know that the A-10 first saw service in 1977. To still be in the air and still being upgraded is amazing. Military tech just doesn't usually last that long! I live in the SW of the US and we have an A-10 wing at a base just outside the city. They are amazing to see fly.
imagine me waking up at 7 am in a gp medium tent out in the field in graffenwoehr at 20 years old and hearing the A 10 firing without having a clue what it was....many questions were asked and my love affair with the A10 began : )
Story repeated in the family... my engineer uncle was with Fairchild Republic assisting the airframe design team, they were going to put the gun off the main axis; he pointed out the torque produced when firing would twist the aircraft off course, so they put it on the centerline. Indeed recoil was a beast.
I live in michigan and I'm in the area where they do some training with these. They come over top of my house at tree top level multiple times in the summer. Always cool to see
I remember spending 2 weeks at Camp Grayling Michigan for annual training and a couple of those days while I was training the local Air National Guard were doing "gun runs" with A-10's and hearing that burp from the gun would just put a smile on your face knowing those were overhead watching your 6
I once visited a friend at the Air Force’s Gila Bend base. After signing a “hold harmless” I was escorted to their gunnery range where I watched A-10s fly in at low level and use that GUN against a target. All I could think was that I did not want to be on the wrong end of it.
One of my Commanders in the AF flew A-10s earlier in his career during the first gulf war. He said when he pulled the trigger the recoil was enough that the airspeed indicator would dip slightly.
3:29 there are no missiles so from left to right electronic jammer pod a laser guided bomb a triple tree of the same bomb a cluster bomb and under the middle is a fuel tank the load will be repeated on the other side but the ew pod will be replaced by a twin rack of sidewinder air to air missiles or quad rack of stingers ATA missiles and its not even heavily loaded in that image.. it can carry far far more weight
Back in the 80's they were on an adjacent target range while we were sending 81mm mortars down our range. Most of their time in area was spent in turns with the wings vertical making the platform difficult to see, then in a split second to horizontal on target firing the gatling gun followed by release of ordinance. Their gun rounds would be on target long before you heard the discharge. Incredible & Intimidating site & sound while surrounded by comfort knowing they're on your side!!
When I was stationed in Germany decades ago I was in a Radar Flight and on a couple of deployments we had the chance to see a few A-10's come up on our radar and drop some flour bombs in our area. Yeah you can hear the engines coming ya just don't know where it's at if you can't see the radar paint. These planes are amazing.
After 9/11, I moved to Hartford, CT for work. I noticed the CT Air National Guard was made up of (at least partially) A-10s. I immediately applied to the CTANG, but was told I was too old (31). I gladly would have been a desk jockey just to be close to these planes. I fell in love with them as they rolled off the Fairchild assembly lines - I even bought and built a model of it the first year it was active in the mid- to late-70s. The next time I head to Cincinnati, OH for work, I plan on taking a vacation day (maybe two) and spending the entire time at Wright-Patterson Airfield, just outside of the city. It's home to the Air Force Museum, which is stunning. And I have noo doubt I will linger around any Hog they have there and just soak that pretty pig in. (My grandparents used to live nearby in Xenia, OH, and my grandfather would take my 2 older brothers and me there all the time when we visited.)
@@user-ek4im3jd5v Wright-Patterson is awesome. Whenever I go to a city with a military museum, count me in. I drove friends and fraternity brothers nuts when I went to college in Mobile, AL, home to the USS Alabama (a South Dakota class battleship, made just before the Iowa class used in Desert Storm), and the USS Drum, a WWII Pacific theater submarine. They have added onto it so much. I also did the self-guided tour on the USS Midway and unintentionally gathered my own tour group as we walked the deck and hangar (it was a private event). I still have Lady Lex to visit in New York. One of my most enjoyable military experiences (outside of when my dad was still in the Reserves) was driving from Wilmington, NC up through Morehead City and on to Elizabeth City. We had to drive through (I think) Fort Bragg (I will respect veterans and use the name they know), and this was my first experience with Tank Crossing signs - just like Bus Stop signs, but with M-1 silhouettes and railroad ties instead of asphalt for their crossing area. So cool. The other fun one was taking the ferry from New London, CT to Fisher's Island, NY. Every so often going out or coming back you would cross paths with an LA class attack sub on the surface - their port is in Groton, CT, a little further up the Lyme River from New London. Also very cool.
I haven't seen them in combat, but I remember seeing them in some training (before the wars). I was in Missouri in 2001 for a special demolition school and we were about to do some demo detonations, but had to wait because there were some aircraft nearby doing training and we had to wait for clear skies. It were a pair of A10's doing strafing runs and we got to see/hear it. Was absolutely amazing to see the aircraft visibly slow down each time they fired, then a few seconds later you would hear the brrrrrt.
When i was a kid. We had an airbase close by, and my neighbor was a pilot. One day i was working on a model and he saw the cover art and realized the plane on the box had his plane's number on it.
That gun; the burp of freedom; loud beyond your imagination. I love this plane, everyone in the Army does. A flying 30mm gattling gun that can put 8 bullets in the same hole and carries bombs too. I see them in NM and Arizona.
I live up north along the Susquehanna River in York County, PA and have seem numerous A-10 trainings flying up and back the river valley. They are sweet machines.
There are, in fact, a large number of baffles on that gun. I agree, baffling is correct. In fact, I think it's the best term to describe the sound of that specific 30mm on the hog lol. Baffling.
Back side of the Sierra Nevada. Warthog was Retired then upgraded and brought back after retirement from first Gulf Conflict when someone flew one in with one front wing!
