The Greatest Attack Jet You've Never Heard Of - A-37 Dragonfly - "The Super Tweet" 

So is the Super Tweet cooler than the A10???

The wife didn’t need to do him dirty like that

Its gonna be a wild 30 seconds "It was okay at best" This bit killed me. Perfection.

I worked on the T-37. I thought they were cute little airplanes and always wondered why they didn't sell them to the civilian market. Something that the video can't convey is how freaking small they are. The cockpit comes to just above your hip. You can literally step into them from the ground. Changing an engine consisted of one person dropping it onto a creeper and rolling it out (about 350 lbs). Jacking up the plane basically was one person picking up the tail. You are correct, they were notoriously easy to work on because everything was easy to access and extremely light. No need for cranes, work stands, or tow vehicles. Darryl and Bubba could easily roll one around the hangar.

My grandfather was a squadron commander of the dragon squadron… he was amazing and received a silver star for landing under fire and picking up a wounded soldier and taking back off again… he used to say that he wouldn’t drop until he could see their eyes… amazing man and we miss him.. LT CO Joseph A Burns… may he rest in pease

So basically the airforce did a grunts and crafts project with a jet and came up with this. It's awesome and great story.

“Basically the Super Tweet is what happens when the Air Force maxes out its starter weapon in every possible upgrade tree.” -the Fat Electrician, hopefully

In Vietnam you would see a USAF or Navy Pilot with a patch "200 Missions F-4C" and everyone would think he was an experienced veteran. Then a VNAF, (Vietnamese Air Force), pilot would walk by with a patch, 2000 or 4000 missions A-37. Now there was experience.

Little fact about the Tweet: it had one hell of a reinforced wing spar. That is the reason you see it carrying giant ordinance on its tiny-ass wings: the thing's wing-center is the strongest point on the aircraft

So, 3,000 lbs of Jungle Jelly, 1,500 round of bad guy to meat-jam technology, and enough engine heat to cook your bacon on the tarmac.... This is the second-most expensive sandwich making machine the Department of Offense has ever produced😂

I had the honor and privilege to inform someone as to the true purpose of the rubber duck today. When asked, without a moments pause I began explaining the long, epic origin & history of the legendary Quackbang. We did it boys, the word has been spread, the greatness will live on.

That Tweet is on the tarmac outside of Aero Turbine in Stockton CA. I worked there for several years and remember the day that was filmed. I'm the guy in the green hat trying to stuff my fingers into my brain through my ears. We rebuilt the engines and manufactured test cells for recertifying overhauls. Good times.

"Traveling at Mach Fuck" has to be one of my new favorite things to say now 😂😂

So, let me get this straight. The dragonfly was covering its dragonballs in napalm and dragging them across the enemy with such efficiency that the 'high-speed' pilots were stuck in the corner holding their...?

The sound of the engine might've gave me +500 tinnitus but God I can... *FEEL* the freedom

Thanks so much for telling the story of our pride and joy. We at Cessna were so proud of the A-37 and its bang for the buck.

I flew that bad boy in the Honduras Air Force from 2009 to 2015. It flew like a different plane depending on the load we carried. Chasing drug runners and blowing up runways in the jungle. I have 1 video on my channel (just some formation flying) formation... Good memories.

Fun fact, the Tweet's signature screech actually has a further unique effect. When you get a shitload of them on a flight line. Like say at a flight training base. The sound does this funny little thing where it hits like some sort of weird harmonization based on frequency weirdness, and they are in fact louder than the sums of their parts.

I for one can believe you made that joke (about the hotel room chair) and I am glad you did. As always, thanks for the laughs and the education. Cheers.

I was stationed at Columbus Air Force Base from 93 to 97 as a meteorologist. Columbus was a pilot training facility and weather did all our work on the airfield. I hear tweeters in my dreams to this day. Took me months to be able to sleep without hearing that noise.❤

You have to quit now because you're never gonna top that hotel room chair joke. That was **chef's kiss**

Nice to know someone else acknowledging this plane.

That Men In Black scene was too perfect and your wife coming in like that was priceless😂. You're videos are amazing! I'm always excited to learn something awesome whenever you post

Saw them in combat in El Sal ador. They are still flying around. That's a testament of how well built and easy to maintain they are.👍

The only reason I knew about the A-37 was becuase I grew up at Columbus Air Force base and one of the Firebird squadron pilots had a model of the A-37 dragonfly on his desk. That tweet engine firing up is the sound of my childhood

"It was ok at best" I love the fact that his wife just crushed his soul in one phrase 😂. I do love the sass

This is the only channel where I can hit the like button half a second into a video and not worry about changing my mind. Great content. Keep up the good work. 👍

I can attest to the extremely harsh sound of the tweet. I was in the USAF, worked F4 phantoms and we had a few still around. At idle the absolute shrill of those engines would make your ears bleed. Yes, I’m old school. Ronald Reagan was my Commander-in-Chief. God bless the Gipper. New sub here and I enjoy your story telling ability and the humor of course.

The engine used on the A-37 was the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) for the KC-135

The Mrs. with the hot take. 100% approved. Don't care if it's scripted or not. Either way she was game enough to go along with his silly youtube videos.

I was in a tactics class once and someone mentioned doing a "wings clean/dirty" check on a visually IDed Low Slow Flyer. The instructor said it was a waste of time because no small aircraft carries ordinance like that. I informed him of the "Super Tweet," the artillery spotter in WWII that had 6 bazookas strapped to his piper cub, and a few weaponized versions of Ag planes (crop dusters). Instructor was super pissed that someone would try to contradict him.

A few years ago I went to an air museum and met a Vietnam veteran who worked there. He told me he flew an A-37 and I responded something like ‘ oh is that one the Cessna’ I barely knew of the plane, but the guy was super happy that someone actually knew what he was talking about. Definitely deserves more recognition, has since become one of my favorite fighter jets

3:00 (The Fat Electrician, 2023) "Pretty hard to aim a bomb while traveling at a speed of mach F**K and actually hit the target!" This is why I like colorful words, they may great adverbs & adjectives!!! Every fight pilot can't even say the word to express how their feeling when pulling tight G's, too busy breathing! Need new merch with a Jet Fighter strappin heat, and quoting that line. Front shows a jet missing its target (from a rear POV) with like 2 explosions, and the qoute on the back.

4:31 That was the perfect opportunity for a "Don’t call me Shirley" joke.

Can you please do the A-6 intruder? If you are going the A-10s family, let’s recognize the brother.

OMG- As I grew up believing I would have to serve in Vietnam, I have been an amateur history buff about Vietnam. I NEVER knew about this great jet being used in combat. I knew the A-1 was so effective that they considered retooling to make new ones, but it was cost-prohibitive. Thanks for further educating me!

In 1985 I got my driver's license and drove myself to my first air show. The Michigan Air National Guard was still flying these. I loved its compact size, teamed with its firepower. Loved it ever since. Would love to buy and fly one.

I’m very glad he mentioned maintenance, a lot of people have no idea how long it takes to repair a plane for even a short practice flight, let alone a combat flight

This plane is the definition of "size doesn't matter"

3:05 Now I know where Brandon (Herrera; aka The AK Guy) got the term "Mach Fuck" from in his latest video, lmao.

I had seen a few old video clips of the plane in combat but had no idea what it was. Then about five or so years ago there was one at an airshow at an RAAF airbase north of Adelaide in South Australia. I couldn't believe it. It looked amazing on the ground and even better in the air. Became an instant favourite. Someone was standing alongside the cockpit, and was taller than the guy sitting in the cockpit, it was so low. Apparently someone had bought , maybe 8 from Vietnam (?) and was getting most of them checked out to full flying condition. Loved it.

It's a high-performance trainer; designed to be robust, easy to fly (low crew workload), stable, inexpensive to operate, and easy to maintain. *AND* everyone knows Tweety Bird *always* wins! Of *course* it's going to make an outstanding attack aircraft! Go Tweety Bird, Go!

I was just at the Wright Patterson Air Force museum in Dayton today and saw this plane and immediately regurgitated everything you said in this video to a bunch of middle schoolers (with less swearing though) and blew their minds. It was a good time. Thanks for your history lessons, they’re a lot of fun!

Doooood so glad to see the Dragonfly getting the love it deserves. I got a ride in one of these in Guatemala back in the 90s.

I remember those planes. I also was able to sit in one of the A10 test planes at Grissom AFB. I was guarding the A10 and the pilot let me sit in it and was showing me the cool stuff in the cockpit. Great memory.

She's got jokes! Hey, she doesn't need to be doing jokes at your expense all the time, but she could be on more often, she's got great comedic timing!

I love the dragonfly. It’s the military’s best KISS example I’ve ever seen.

2:25 Ah, I spent almost all of 1989 at Keesler AFB in Tech School in the 3803rd STUS. Our squadron was at the SW end of the active runway and my room was on the west side, so I got very familiar with the sound of the T-38 Tweets and the WC-130s taking off and landing all the time. The screech of the Tweet is something you never forget.

Thank you for your always entertaining twisted view of the weapons of war. As a kid I really liked sitting in the Tweet on Armed Forces Day. It was small enough I actually could see out the front windscreen and in my mind I believed I could fly the thing. The pilots were pretty cool too. They were taking some serious lip from the F-100, F-101, F-105, F-4, and any Navy pilots who happened to be on the bases. Our family spent from early 60’s til 70 in the Far East, PACAF, as my late Dad was a career USAF type.

My favorite parts of your videos, is when you point and leave space for a photo... and one is not there. I don't know why, but I giggle every time. I love it. I feel like I was tricked.

I would love to see a "Badass US military legend of the week" video. About 5-7 minutes of backstory of how they earned their reputation.

Just started working for Textron (they own Cessna now) and saw all their pictures of this thing on the walls, nice to have some bonus history!

30mm? That's a Maxi-gun. My DAD LOVED THOSE SKYRAIDERS!!!! He never flew in one but he was a radio operator and when he heard those big radial engines, he knew he was going to be home before the Marines could drink all the beer.

I love that it is called “Super Tweet”. Also 1:15 broke me.

I am sure Mama Electrician was only too happy to do her cameo.

There’s one you can go see at the Stonehenge aircraft museum in Eureka MT. Great museum, seriously overlooked. The owner is quite the guy as well, he once flipped one of his biplanes on landing throwing himself from the plane, dusted himself off, and went back to the house to have a glass of wine. He failed to mention to the staff that he was alright, so all they knew was that there was a plane on its lid and no pilot to be found. Panic ensued and they eventually found him, totally fine, enjoying some wine and catching his breath.

I would love a DragonFly parked in my driveway. They flew out of Battle Creek, MI so I grew up watching them fly around SW Michigan, and even in the air they have quite the "whine". They didn't get enough respect for what they did.

When you said “ It’s tiny “ I expected your wife to come in and state” It’s cute though “ 😂😂😂💀 Semper Fi 🦅🌎⚓️

You need to do the P-47. The OG gangster. The literal definition of, “Oh Lawd, HE COMIN.”

Yep , when the snakes couldn't do what needed to be done . It was great to see these things show up . By the time I left RVN in 71 . There were a lot of these being flown by the SVN AF . The Sandy's out of TL were good to see show up when we were working along the trail . Here is a funny thing . In 75 I lived on Craig AFB in Ala , and these T 37's were in the air day & night . Until now , I never associated the T37 with the Dragonfly from RVN :D I was a medic though while in RVN . Cool video . I wish somebody in the Gov. was smart enough to bring some of these back !

This is one of your best episodes. Never know of this plane if not for you. Not 1 Viet Nam war bio mentions this plane. Amazing.

“Now they referred to it as a fighter, despite the fact that it was mostly ground-pounding the Viet Cong, but I guess calling a plane a ‘hands the enemy’s a** to them on a silver platter’-er was a bit too unprofessional for the brass.” -The Fat Electrician, hopefully

4:48 Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Freedom Jelly. The only times when close counts.

Your ability to tell a story so eloquently is mesmerizing! I fuckin love it! 👏😁

I remember hearing a problem with the Dragonfly’s mini gun was that it was too accurate and precise. Pilots could saturate such a small cone of ground with fire, they compared it to a laser.

The excellent commentary as TFE leaves his studio... Nailed it. I couldn't agree more.

Now I need an episode of "America" where the Warthog gives a Mothers Day card to the Dragonfly.

Saw some of these in the air over El Salvador this morning. Badass little plane.

My Pop trained pilots in the Tweet for years after he flew the A/C-47 Spooky. If you haven’t already, you should ABSOLUTELY do a show on that truly badass mofo. Bastard is the father of the Spectre.

i am a tank guy myself but there are a few planes that i absolutly love for how iconic they were for their era. if you think of vietnam and napalm, this is that plane.

Excellent video! I would have like to have a dragonfly too! The only worse missed purchase that I have heard of was when you could get de-milled P-47's after WW2 for just $2300.00 in 1946 dollars!!

I was at Howard AFB in Panama in the early 80s, The Salvadorian pilots were being trained on these planes and were doing amazing things with these platforms.

There's a story about these planes in their final days serving the Republic of Vietnam that is amazingly badass and tragic at the same time. During Black April 1975 and the battle of Phan Rang, the A-37 pilots were flying missions so close to their air stripes that they barely had the time to pull up their landing before dropping their ordonnance and heading back to rearm.

I think it's safe to say Nick definitely married up. Well played Mrs. Electrician. Well played indeed.

My dad was a weapons loader on Tweets at Grissom AFB in the late 70s/early 80s. I got to watch a load competition with them in Alpena. It was fabulous. They unit switched to A-10s when I switched to AF reserves as a crew chief. Wish I could've been a Tweet maintainer. It is the only plane I can think of easier to take care of than the A-10.

Your videos always improve my day. Thank you for making all of this military history fun.

in somewhat (un)related story time, I’ve built a 1/48 scale Monogram model kit of this thing 8 years ago, and even in scale model form, this airplane is a f**cking badass with wings... I loved it so much that I bought a dozen of them afterwards... and it doesn’t hurt that it’s still one of the cheapest model kits around, even in collector’s item form... P.S. I hope you’ll do the OV-10 Bronco as well, another underrated Vietnam-era combat airplane that flew alongside the Skyraiders and the Super Tweets, doing some of the missions so dangerous, that guys flying it were considered as either heroic, or just plain old badass... my dad flew it for the Philippine Air Force after the USAF retired theirs and sold some of them to us...

This awesome little guy was the first jet I ever saw in person, watched it land and park at an airshow, got to get into the cockpit later on, I was like 6 years old and all I remember was it looked much cooler than the bright pink and blue urban camo painted Mig-17 that landed right after it, owned by the same guy.

As a former Vietnam era Air Force crew chief....I love these videos.

I trained about 20 hours in the T-37B, and I'm trying to imagine it with triple the thrust. That would have been so much fun! Like a go-kart with an 300cc motor. Zoom zoom!

1:27 - "This thing is absolutely tiny" [Wife opens the door again] Fat Electrician: "No! No! Don't even!"

Dragonfly watching the A-10 wrecking shop: " So proud of you, boy. "

50 years ago, when I was 14, I saw an T-37 at the Colorado state faire in Pueblo Colorado. The plane was on display at the faire with an Air Force Academy cadet answering questions. He told me that he had learned how to fly in the T-37. It looked so damn small.

Actually got to go for a ride in one of the T-37s back in the late 80's. Ride lasted all of 5 minutes, but was more than ample time for me to experience what it's like to strap your ass to an rocket, and then have some maniac demonstrate the required maneuvers to negotiate a thrown brick around a corner. While I still have 2 eyeballs, for the majority of the ride they were both trying to occupy one socket at a time and were arguing which socket it was gonna be, and occasionally my ear canals were being used as substitutes. My sphincter was steadily complaining how it was not designed to retain it's contents at four times the force of gravity while my stomach was doing it's level best to relocate itself somewhere around my right kneecap. While I did manage to finish the ride without puking (barely) I did pass out twice during the flight, and then fell face first on the tarmac the moment I stepped off the ladder... For folks wondering what it's truly like being in a small jet, forget the G5, one of these will beat the adrenaline rush an F1 driver gets.

So military and political incompetence made one of the greatest close air support systems in history. That’s what you call irony

The new crop duster turned light attack aircraft that SOCOM buys is the second coming of the Tweet

im glad you keep the parts in when your wife interrupts and makes the most random and sometimes funniest jokes even if its going WAY off topic to something completely unrelated

Dude !!!! You crack me up, I love your delivery and sarcasm! What’s more impressive is that you seem to get it right, from aviation (which I know a lot about)to weapons (which I know about)to real life stories(which I’m living) I haven’t found any errors or misinformation. Thanks for this channel!

Correction: The USAF most certainly DID have the A-1E "Sandy". Among other things, it was used for ground fire suppression during rescue ops.

Outstandingly informative and entertaining! Thanks for giving the A-37 a long overdue shout out!

His wife took its advice”it’s never a war crime the first time”

I'm tall, in 3rd grade we did the whole "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Normal stuff from the other kids. Fireman, cop, family business, personal dreams, whatever. Me: I'm going to be a fighter pilot. Teacher: you will be too tall to be a fighter pilot. We debate, I lose. The heartbreak remains to this day. I can tell you exactly why random cargo/logistics dudes hopped straight into the smallest hottest shit box, and laid waste to everything within their sight. "I will fly the gun with wings" It is slow, you are meant to drop bombs. I said I will fly, get out of my way.

I'm gonna go ahead and just say it, "I SWEAR I JUST SAW DEM JUGS!" 😧😧 Well played Fat Electrician, well played.

The Illinois Air National Guard used to fly these out of Peoria in the late 70s-early 80s. They were OA-37B, which were set up for FAC missions like the OA-10 Bronco (another fantastic aircraft hardly anyone knows about). The big problem with the Tweets was that to get any useful range out them, they had to carry drop tanks on 2 of the 3 wing stations instead of ordnance. In the FAC role the outermost station on each wing normally carried a pod with smoke rockets for marking targets.

pretty sure thats my office building in the background at 2:30. The Cavanaugh Flight Museum is right there and sometims Ingo eat lunch and look at the planes.

I swear, I always notice the knife hand gesture when you talk. It is 100% a weapon of mass instruction cause lord knows I've learned a lot about American history and our armed forces from you!

Not sure if you’re taking suggestions for videos to make, but one I would recommend is on a single plane, “Ol’ 666;” a B-17 that flew in WWII. It’s crew is still the most highly decorated crew in history, and one particular mission remains the most highly decorated mission in history, with of its crew receiving Congressional Medals of Honor and the rest of the crew receiving the Distinguished Service Medal. The plane itself was a grunts and crafts project, with the modifications that were made to it. Very good book written about it (I forget the name). My two cents.

I had a blast flying T-37s back in 2005, I believe that the dog whistle was a result of the single stage centrifugal flow compressor of the engine.

So, so many great lines and connections across all your videos I've watched (so far) that I already think you should do standup/write comedy for a living, but if you manage to top that 2nd seat/hotel room joke then you absolutely deserve a Netflix special.

The salt at the end 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣