Question for A-10 Pilots

[pony251]

All the A-10's I know of that went to OIF/OEF flew there on there own power. You may have seen the A-10 that got shot up being packaged to come home. The hog has on occasion taken part in red flags. It is far from being a fighter only event.

 

[mudkow60]

My squadron did a det in Nellis, NV. The A-10 unit wanted to try and track our helo with it's Maveric missle system. We did 1 v. 3, and they were pretty good at locking us up, even at 50 feet. So air to air v helo- yes they do/did it, and they do it well.

 

[Swede]

F-111 was still faster, although an hard wing (unslatted) F-4 could still be pretty freaking fast, apparently even giving an F-15 a run for its money under certain conditions.

I have heard of 2.8 being reached on check flights in a D model, and the F still had more power. One of friends who flew a D model has flown at M1.15 at sea level with empty bomb racks, and didnt have every burner stage going.

2.8?!?! Smokin! That's impressive. You're going to have some significant heating there. We had a guy do 2.5 in an F15 which had fresh paint and decals... it was an FCF flight. Upon landing, the maintenance boys were livid, as the decals had melted and the paint was ruined from the heat!

Hi Q is fun but scary in that ejection (except for the F-111) would expose you to probably fatal flail injuries. When I was active duty, the AF went from underarm "mae west" type life-preservers for water ejections to salt-water activated horse collar preservers. This was after a fatality in which flail broke the guy's arms and he could neither inflate his vest not detach the mask. The mask was always an issue. If still attached, and you are unable to remove it, upon landing in the H2O, the end of the O2 tube would be under water. Owie.

 

[Rook]

Why dont you think so pony? I'm too lazy to search the forums.

Rook

 

[pony251]

Rook, After talking to all of our Lt's in UPT and undergoing a transition to the Guard, I would say that the AF is very much like the airlines. They are very procedure and book oriented. The good news is they are standardized enough to make this work for them. Naval flight school seemed to be less standardized. Naval aviation as a whole tends to give you enough rope to hang yourself by. As long as something isn't prohibited you can do it. This makes things a little more fun but it can bite you in the ass if something goes wrong. It is a fine line. It took a lot of blue kool-aid for me to get used to the AF way.

 

[Rook]

Thanks for the info pony. Grew up around the AF wanted to fly Navy just got my BS at 29 so a little late but love to hear stories about training. Thanks again and have fun at the big brown.

Rook

 

[414Flyer]

Rook, After talking to all of our Lt's in UPT and undergoing a transition to the Guard, I would say that the AF is very much like the airlines. They are very procedure and book oriented. The good news is they are standardized enough to make this work for them. Naval flight school seemed to be less standardized. Naval aviation as a whole tends to give you enough rope to hang yourself by. As long as something isn't prohibited you can do it. This makes things a little more fun but it can bite you in the ass if something goes wrong. It is a fine line. It took a lot of blue kool-aid for me to get used to the AF way.

one of my friends who went thru the first part of USAF UPT in T-37s and finished in Navy T-45s said something very similar. Said USAF training was very much rigid and on a fixed schedule, and that navy training was much more relaxed in comparison

 

[dash8driver]

i've heard the same things also... it was put to me this way

"the AF tells you what you CAN do, everything else is prohibited. the navy tells you what you CANT do, everything else is fair game"

 

[VNugget]

I gotta 'nother one for you. Everyone knows that you get quite a bit of force from the GAU-8, but I vaguely remember seeing a calculation (involving round mass, muzzle velocity, and ROF) that showed the force from it to be almost equal to one of the engines. I'da never imagined it to be that high. Is that true?

 

[pony251]

Vnugget, I'm no physics major. I do know the gun shakes the airplane like you wouldn't believe. I get asked this question at air shows alot. The reality of it is that you can only shoot the gun for a short burst. Hold the trigger too long and you start to damage the rifling in the barrels from overheating. I am sure that it does have some effect on airspeed, but it always seems negligible due to how we employ the gun. However, when the first a-10's were being tested they did lose at least one to gun gas exhaust snuffing out the motors. I believe there is some good footage of this out there.

 

[mattpilot]

on DWNG (*RIP*) they said if you fired long enough, the airplane would actually come to a stop.


any truth to that?

 

[pony251]

Like I said, you would melt the barrels long before you came close to stopping the airplane. I'm not smart enough to figure out the math.

 

[A Squared]

Well, it's not that hard to figure out if you know the cyclic rate, the muzzle velocity and the weight of the projectiles.

 

[Sniper Bob]

"the AF tells you what you CAN do, everything else is prohibited. the navy tells you what you CANT do, everything else is fair game"

This reminds me, what's the difference was between unlawful and illegal?

 

[mattpilot]

Well, it's not that hard to figure out if you know the cyclic rate, the muzzle velocity and the weight of the projectiles.

Did a quick google search... http://www.military.cz/usa/air/in_service/weapons/cannons/gau8/gau8_en.htm

Recoil force is 40000 Newton, or 9000lbs. Good stuff

 

[FN FAL]

Wouldn't it be more practical to figure out how much horesepower it would take to make an A-10 fly fast enough for it to catch up with the light emitted by it's landing light?

 

[Hawg76]

Thanks for all the great info. One more if anyone knows the answer. Did most A-10's fly to Afganistan and Iraq during the war? I saw some pictures of A-10's with the wings removed being loaded into C-5's.

Do A-10's take part in Red Flag or is that only for F- aircraft?

All A-10s flew across the pond. Took awhile but lots of good air refueling practice. Speaking of which, Hawg2Hawk, why do you have such a weak picture as your avatar? There's plenty of pictures with maverick/gun shots, but I digress. A-10s do take part in Red Flag. In fact, there's one coming up. A-10s also take part in WIC support, Air Warrior I/II, an occasional Maple Flag, etc. And no, the gun does not have an effect on airspeed at 45+ degrees of dive, 35,000 pounds, and 375 knots. Same for low altitude.

 

[A Squared]

OK, I did a little googling and found the 9000 lb. figure in a number of differnt places ... being of a skeptical nature, I also dug up numbers for projectile mass, muzzle velocity and cyclic rate and did the math. The 9000 lb figure is pretty realistic ... so, anyhow, everyplace I looked listed the A-10 engine as having 9065 lb of thrust, so that would suggest that firing the gun would indeed be like losing one engine.

 

[JimNtexas]

Really. what about the F-4? I thought the Phantom was faster.

I flew them both. If I recall correctly the absolute maximum machwas2.2for the hard wing F-4C and F-111A, and 2.5 for the F-111F, up inouterspace. Those numbers don't really mean anything anyway.

In the real world, the F-111 was much faster than the F-4 atthealtitudes aircraft really fly at. Both aircraft planned lowlevelsat480 knots, but the F-111 had the gas and the power to gomuchfaster,whereas the F-4 was seconds from bingo if it went muchfasterthan 480 down low.

The limiting factor on speed in the F-111 was the windows. We hadatimerthat would starting running when a sensor in the windowssignaled anoverheat condition. When the timer ran down to zero thenext thing thatwould happen is that windows would melt.

The word "fast" doesn't do justice to what the F-111, especiallytheF-111F was capable of. There's not an airplane flying todaythat theF-111 couldn't blow the doors off of (unless Bert takes SS-1out ofmothballs).

And the F-111 was engineered for crew comfort! It had aridecontrolsystem that damped out the bumps giving you a luxury carride nomatterhow fast you were going. It had a real air conditioner!

The F-4 was also a great plane, but comfort wasn't partoftheequation, especially in the pit where I was. The F-4 wasawarmachine, period. They didn't call it a Rhino for nothing.

Ride control was handled for the WSO by the canopy (when yourheadwasbanged into it) and the radar (when you head was banged intoit).Itwas so **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** hotbacktherethat you quickly went into delirium caused by dehydration,whichisprobably why we thought we were having fun back there.

There was also a huge cultural difference between the two airplanes.All my F-4 time was in Weasel squadrons whose mission was to attractthe attention of the surface to air missile operators so that we couldattack them after they launched at us.

Briefings were mostly conducted in unprintable four letter words andlasted a few minutes. Our flight plan was drawn on the back of our 4x6"lineup card, in crayola. The whole approach to life was that of amotorcycle gang. Our tactics were basically drive to the other gangsbar, entering by crashing through their windows. We would beat themover the head with chains for a minute and then run like heck beforethey got organized. The Bloods and Crips had nothing on us.

In the F-111 we were more like scientific assassins. Planning tookhours, sometimes days. Our missions were very long by F-4 standards,and were planned to the nano-second. The black lines were drawn on thecharge with an ultra fine tip pen, and you didn't go off the black lineno matter what. The F-111 arrived at a carefully computed bomb releasepoint at EXACTLY the correct attitude, altitude, and airspeed, andwithin one second of the planned time. Everything was done quietly,smoothly, professionally, scientifically with great precision.

Two great airplanes, two great ways of life, two very different communities.

 

[hawg2hawk]

Speaking of which, Hawg2Hawk, why do you have such a weak picture as your avatar?

Have any naked pictures of your wife?

Want some?

 

[PGH STEEL]

The A-10 is on the MIL Channel Now, started @ 2300 Est

 

[mattpilot]

Have any naked pictures of your wife?

Want some?

oooooooooooooh Snap!

 

[Hawg76]

Have any naked pictures of your wife?

Want some?

Unfortunately, my wife passed away last year. But thanks-you're a pretty swell guy.