Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II — Gun with a Plane Around It

By Will Dabbs, MD

A buddy with whom I flew back when I was an Army aviator once related a story from the First Gulf War. In the opening days of Desert Storm things were chaotic. Coalition forces were moving so quickly that there were no real front lines. His aircraft was tasked to punch into Iraqi territory and retrieve a high value asset who had been wounded.

They located the asset and dismounted the SF retrieval team to make the pickup. However, the asset was badly hurt and they were having difficulty getting him prepped for movement. That’s when one of the operators noticed a dust plume approaching in the distance. Peering through his Steiner binoculars, the Green Beret identified a pair of Iraqi jeeps barreling their way, both sporting belt-fed machine guns.

At the time, U.S. Army helicopters were painted a dark OD green that could pass for black. Against the light brown powdery Iraqi desert sand, they stuck out like a wart on a supermodel. There was no way they could hide, and the asset was too badly hurt to exfil prior to the Iraqis getting within range. In desperation, my buddy got on the radio.

In any modern war zone that includes Americans, there is always an orbiting AWACS aircraft that is controlling and deconflicting combat aircraft running tactical sorties against enemy targets. That airspace is a busy, dangerous place, and these eyes in the sky help prevent blue-on-blue accidents. In this case, the AWACS controller came back moments later with the solution to my buddy’s problem. They had a pair of Air Force A-10 attack jets that were diverted from their mission heading downtown to attack Iraqi armor. They would be onsite in under two minutes. It would still be close.

Republic called the A-10 the Thunderbolt II. The plane was an evolutionary descendent of the WWII-vintage P-47 Thunderbolt that did yeoman’s work as a rugged and devastating ground attack platform in both Europe and the Pacific. However, everyone I ever knew called the big ugly jet the Warthog.

These two Warthogs identified the big black helicopter at long distance, and my friend gave them a vector from his position to the target. The two attack planes skimmed over at low level, pitched up, and rolled inverted so the pilots could identify their targets while upside down. They then rolled around the axis of the gun to put the greasy side of the airplane down and establish their attack vector. There was a sound like ripping canvas, and the two gun jeeps were instantly and most thoroughly pulverized. The two A-10’s then waggled their wings and headed north to sow more chaos.

The A-10 recycles its empties so as not to drop the things onto the heads of the troops they are supporting. Ground support crews purge the spent cases as part of the reloading process. There’s a big machine on wheels that undertakes this process quickly and efficiently.

The following day, my buddy bumped into one of the A-10 pilots who gifted him a handful of the massive 30mm cases from the rescue mission as souvenirs. He gave one of them to me. It is a tangible reminder of the fearsome power of the mighty A-10 Warthog.

Origin Story

As an Army aviator, I worked with Air Force A-10’s several times back in the day. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, who actually mattered loved that big ugly thing. However, the Air Force brass have nonetheless been trying unsuccessfully to retire the plane for decades. Their insular world is dominated by sleek sexy aircraft like the F-16 Viper, F-15 Eagle, Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II. The big, slow Warthog offends the traditional Wing Nuts’ sensibilities. In addition to being quite objectively homely, the A-10 also seems to be unkillable.

The A-10 was actually developed to meet ground attack requirements identified during the Vietnam War. Our standard CAS (Close Air Support) platform back then was Douglas A-1 Skyraider. Affectionately known as Sandy or the SPAD, the A-1 was powered by an enormous radial engine and reflected WWII technology. While operating low and slow in support of ground troops in contact, the A-1 was both effective and terribly vulnerable. Given the technology of the burgeoning jet age, we could obviously do better.

Development of the Cold War-era A-10 actually began in 1961. The trajectory of the resulting A-X program was influenced by interservice rivalries and the evolution of attack helicopter technology. American military services guard their turf jealously, and there were times when the Army got a bit covetous of all those R&D dollars. With the petty childish stuff finally out of the way, the USAF spooled up 21 different defense contractors to start work on the new attack aircraft in 1967.

Particulars

The specs demanded an armored airplane with a maximum speed of 400 knots, a takeoff distance of 4,000 feet, an external load of 16,000 pounds, and a combat radius of 285 miles. As this was to be the USAF’s first dedicated CAS platform, it was also designed around a particularly unusual gun. The seven-barrel 30mm GAU-8 hydraulically-driven Gatling gun weighed 619 pounds and, with its feed system, was nearly 20 feet long. The final version fired rounds the size of a water bottle and cycled at 3,900 rounds per minute. The end result became an aviation legend. Rather theatrically, the Air Force called the gun the Avenger.

The field was winnowed down over time. After a flyoff between the Northrop YA-9A and the Fairchild Republic YA-10A, the Republic airplane took the day. The first production A-10 flew in 1975. The Hog saw squadron service the following year. Curiously, there was only one experimental two-seat A-10 ever produced. The Air Force had top-quality flight simulators, of course, but the first time a Hog driver took to the skies in his new mount it was always all by his lonesome.

Design Details

The A-10 was designed from scratch to get up close and personal with the enemy while operating out of austere airfields. The engines were oriented high on the airframe to prevent damage from debris while taxiing. The cockpit was surrounded by 1,200 pounds of titanium armor. Hog drivers referred to this armored capsule as, “The Bathtub.”

The engines, landing gear, and vertical stabilizers are interchangeable from one side of the plane to the other for ease of maintenance. The landing gear all fold forward. This way, in the event of a hydraulic failure, the slipstream and gravity would help deploy the gear.

The main wheels remain partially exposed when stowed. This was done intentionally to make belly landings more survivable. The nose gear is offset to the side to accommodate the big cannon. As a result, turning right on the ground in the A-10 requires less space than turning left. Low-pressure tires allow the plane to operate from unimproved surfaces.

If you look at a Warthog from the front, you immediately notice that the gun is weirdly offset to the left. This is done so the firing barrel discharges along the aircraft centerline and 2 degrees below the line of flight. This geometry prevents significant changes to the airplane’s yaw or pitch during firing. The recoil force at the gun’s cyclic rate is roughly 10,000 pounds-force — more than the combined output of the A-10’s two engines. Firing the gun does actually slow the plane down a bit.

Ruminations

Maximum takeoff weight is 46,000 pounds, and the plane includes 18 underwing hardpoints for ordnance. The standard ammo load for the GAU-8 is 1,174 rounds. The A-10 will pack 2.75-inch Hydra 70 rockets, Sidewinder and Maverick missiles, and a ridiculous array of both guided and unguided bombs. 716 copies have been built.

The A-10 has participated in every major combat engagement the U.S. has seen over the plane’s long and distinguished half-century service life. Over the decades, the USAF has aggressively upgraded the wings, cockpit and targeting systems. Back in my day, the USAF A-10 pilots flew their attack jets in the dark under night vision goggles, something that we Army pilots had already raised to an art form.

Nowadays, the mighty A-10 Warthog has fallen prey to battlefield technological advancements. The wide array of relatively inexpensive air defense systems on the modern battlefield has pushed the A-10 inexorably toward obsolescence. However, for the Earth Pigs, nothing is more reassuring when the goblins are breaching the wire than those two enormous powerful turbofans followed by the inimitable roar of that big honking Gatling gun. Brrrrrrttttt……

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