SLCPilot From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 526 posts, RR: 3 Reply 3, posted (11 months 2 weeks 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 7122 times:
Some friends of mine are doing the modification. I am not sure if it's in the public domain yet. I'll ask and share if it is. It will almost certainly be at some point.
That being said, it would take some serious hazard pay for me to fly those missions. OK, you snap a wing, no problem, you've got a hot seat and a canopy. Well, it seems you've just ejected into 3" hail and a 5,000 fpm updraft. When they recover your body three states downwind it will be frozen solid from it's journey to 60,000'.
That's not my idea of fun.
Cheers!
SLCPilot
I don't like to be fueled by anger, I don't like to be fooled by lust...
j.mo From United States of America, joined Feb 2002, 640 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (11 months 2 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 6842 times:
Quoting SLCPilot (Reply 3): That being said, it would take some serious hazard pay for me to fly those missions. OK, you snap a wing, no problem, you've got a hot seat and a canopy. Well, it seems you've just ejected into 3" hail and a 5,000 fpm updraft. When they recover your body three states downwind it will be frozen solid from it's journey to 60,000'
I will tell you though, I would rather do it in an A-10 than that T-28 the article mentions.
JM
What is the difference between Fighter pilots and God? God never thought he was a fighter pilot.
SLCPilot From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 526 posts, RR: 3 Reply 5, posted (11 months 1 week 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 6626 times:
While it will eventually come out, my buddy was concerned advertising the project will lead to visitors stopping by the shop to see the plane. If I'm able to share pics of the progress I will.
I went through a cell in a Falcon 20 once and experienced a nearly instantaneous 50kt speed increase. I don't like cells Sam I am.
Cheers!
SLCPilot
I don't like to be fueled by anger, I don't like to be fooled by lust...
HaveBlue From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 2069 posts, RR: 1 Reply 6, posted (11 months 1 week 6 days 2 hours ago) and read 6426 times:
Very cool. I've always been a big fan of the A-10 and have been happy every time it escaped those who wanted it gone. Like a jet version of the A-1 Skyraider.
SLCPilot that is awesome that you have friends working on it. When you can share what they are doing I'll be glad to see it! And I'm with you on passing on that kind of mission... brave souls that volunteer for that. Remember the NASA F-106 lightning catcher?
On a side note I thought this sentence from the OP's linked article was interesting.. "It can also fly lower than the T-28, making it ideal for air-sea interaction studies, and its heavy payload will support lidar, radar, and other imaging systems."
I guess having a higher thrust:weight (and higher wing loading???) than the T-28 may give it the performance advantage to batter withstand the turbulence and escape downdraughts when flying closer to cumulogranitus or cumuloocianicus.
Quote: We took a T-28-A model, which is the small -- 1200 horsepower -- engine Air Force trainer, and we put the Navy engine in it -- 1,425 horsepower. It's a Lycoming-built Pratt & Whitney 1820-86B and we swing a big three-bladed prop that the Navy uses. We had to go to the big engine to get up to altitude, because the airplane was built originally to max out at about 8,000 pounds, and we're flying it at around 9,000 pounds-- which is legal because our airplane is registered in the restricted category.
Paul MacCready [aeronautical engineer, weather researcher and Founder of Aerovironment, Inc.] was presented with the problem, 'Could you reinforce, do something, modify an airplane to get it through a thunderstorm and endure primarily the hail, lightening, and the turbulence?' and he took the task on, and what he came up with was modifications to this aircraft. What we did is we put about .0060- to .0070-thick armor plating on the leading edge of the wings, on the leading edges of the horizontal stabilizer and the vertical stabilizer, and around the cowl. The canopy is armor-plated on the top and the sides. We use a 3/4" Lexan windshield with a slant to it -- like a fighter windshield. I've had the hail pounding off the windshield so loud I couldn't even hear, so I'm not concerned about the windshield giving any ground.
We have a laser on the left wing which has a six-inch laser beam between two big pylons. I can count, sort, and evaluate hail going by, and it runs all that through the computer. When I start hearing hail impacts the laser will pick it up and my controller on the ground says, 'You're getting hail,' and I say, 'I'll confirm that.' We have smaller lasers which pick up smaller particles, right on down to the micros, and we have good temperature sensors.
We have two G-meter devices that pick up pitch and roll, so attitude data gets fed back to ground. We carry a camera on board on the right wing, and it's kind of in its infancy. It works good except when it gets iced over, and we're working on a de-icing system to keep it a little clearer.
tommytoyz From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1102 posts, RR: 5 Reply 11, posted (11 months 1 week 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 5819 times:
checksixx From United States of America, joined Mar 2005, 996 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (11 months 1 week 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 5754 times:
Quoting HaveBlue (Reply 6): Remember the NASA F-106 lightning catcher?
Yes! You can still see it at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, VA.
BigJKU From United States of America, joined Feb 2007, 709 posts, RR: 11 Reply 14, posted (11 months 1 day 12 hours ago) and read 5076 times:
Quoting fridgmus (Reply 13): This aircraft does so much and does it well, why does the Air Force keep trying to get rid of it?
And IMHO, it will still do a better job than the F-35 in the CAS role!
The Air Force is not trying to get rid of it. They will fly the things until they can't fly anymore. They are going to right size the force to get the longest life they can out of the number they need for A-10 specific missions. It is not really comparable to the F-35. What they mean when they say the F-35 will "replace" the A-10 is that they won't be buying a new version of the A-10.
What will most likely happen is they will curtail the A-10 force in the post-Afghanistan future and use the ones they can stuff in the boneyard to keep the active ones flying for a very long time.
BigJKU From United States of America, joined Feb 2007, 709 posts, RR: 11 Reply 19, posted (10 months 3 weeks 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 4578 times:
Quoting sweair (Reply 18): Would they sell if some allies wanted to buy some? There is not many planes like it in the market.
There is a reason the A-10 never sold to any other nation. It is a pretty mission specific platform that only really appeals to a nation that can afford a niche aircraft. The current incarnation, the A-10C, is much more flexible but is still at its best in a very permissive air defense environment. If you can afford to keep an aircraft type flying that will mostly be useful for COIN operations and CAS against pretty old or badly degraded air defense systems then it is great. Most nations can't so they do without and go for more multi-role aircraft.
Quoting wvsuperhornet (Reply 15):
But what we are reading the F-35 is an over priced piece of junk and can't replace the A-10 for the role it provides!!!
That is the Air Force's way of saying two things.
1. For the set of missions the A-10 fly's really well that other planes can't do there is not a better replacement.
2. When the A-10 airframes run out of life we are basically going to lose some of that capability because it would be too expensive to build a new airframe with that capability given the environment right now.
It is best to think of the A-10 in the same way as the F-14. They were fairly specialized aircraft that as the Cold War went away are giving way to more generalist aircraft. The F-14 was in a much worse way than the A-10, which is a very valuable aircraft in a place like Afghanistan but it is hard to start a development program that will be very expensive for something like a new A-10, just like it would be hard to get funds to make a new F-14 (ie build a large, missile heavy interceptor).
spudh From Ireland, joined Jul 2009, 274 posts, RR: 1 Reply 20, posted (10 months 3 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 4406 times:
Quoting BigJKU (Reply 19): It is best to think of the A-10 in the same way as the F-14. They were fairly specialized aircraft that as the Cold War went away are giving way to more generalist aircraft. The F-14 was in a much worse way than the A-10, which is a very valuable aircraft in a place like Afghanistan but it is hard to start a development program that will be very expensive for something like a new A-10, just like it would be hard to get funds to make a new F-14 (ie build a large, missile heavy interceptor).
I don't quite agree with you BigJKU.
They are similar in the sense that they were maybe 'too much' of an aircraft for what remained of their cold war roles as originally conceived. The F-14's most powerful weapon, the phoenix, became largely irrelevant when ROE's demanded visual aquisition before firing reducing engagement range down to less than the Amraam, a cheaper, smaller weapon deployable across multiple platforms. However the flying qualities of the F-14 which enabled it to employ the Phoenix from a carrier are more in demand now than ever. The Tomcat had a combination of speed, loiter, payload and endurance capabilities that no other fast jet could match. Its deployed role was very specialised but the jet itself was a better generalist than any other. Where it became outdated was on the technological and budget side of things. The A and B models were largely analog and would have required far too much work/money to integrate any new weapons onto airframes running out of hours. The digital D's represented too small a force to contenance putting up with the maintenace cost when newer more 'efficient' alternatives were waiting in the wings. But the F-14 had a big part to play in the early years of Afghanistan and funnily enough it was in the FAC role that it excelled.
A bit like saying that a Rolls Royce is excellent at towing a caravan, very true but so is an F150.
With the A-10 there is no better single weapon to engage a hoard of invading tanks than the GAU-8 in an A-10 but in any other scenario stand-off weapons offer a lower risk option for engaging less numerous enemy. The conundrum for military planners in the CAS/COIN role is that a 30mm cannon shell is a much cheaper way of taking out a 50cal machine gun in the back of a 20 year old toyota pick up than a €100,000+ smart weapon. But employing that 30mm cannon brings your $30million A-10 in range of black market stinger missile. I think you'll find that in WW2 more T34's and Shermans fell to panzerfausts and mines than to Tiger tanks. To protect against MANPADS the A-10's had to operate at an altitude unsuitable to employment of the GAU-8. But again the A-10 has highly sought after flying qualities of loiter, payload and endurance particularly suited to CAS/COIN
So if you want to compare them, they both lost the use of their primary weapon because of ROE's. Other USN airframe types were capable of filling the remainder of the F-14's role to an acceptable level. No other USAF airframe types can do the remaining A-10 roles to an acceptable level. The F-14 is confined to history (at least in US hands), the A-10 will fly on until 2028 at least by some accounts.
BigJKU From United States of America, joined Feb 2007, 709 posts, RR: 11 Reply 21, posted (10 months 3 weeks 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 4367 times:
Quoting spudh (Reply 20): So if you want to compare them, they both lost the use of their primary weapon because of ROE's. Other USN airframe types were capable of filling the remainder of the F-14's role to an acceptable level. No other USAF airframe types can do the remaining A-10 roles to an acceptable level. The F-14 is confined to history (at least in US hands), the A-10 will fly on until 2028 at least by some accounts.
I would largely agree here that the A-10 will be around for a while because it is an effective COIN aircraft. I think the main reason it survives and the F-14 didn't is that while both were adaptable the A-10 is an affordable platform for the roles needed for it and the F-14 really wasn't in any incarnation.
Quoting spudh (Reply 20): With the A-10 there is no better single weapon to engage a hoard of invading tanks than the GAU-8 in an A-10
I would and do disagree with this. At the time of inception this might have made sense but at this point the role the A-10 would have played against a large, advancing mechanized force would be played by fast aircraft using CBU-97/105's which would be far more effective in that role. In its original role I think the A-10 is pretty much done. But like you said, it will be around for a long while because it can be cheaply operated as a persistent presence in a low threat air environment.
spudh From Ireland, joined Jul 2009, 274 posts, RR: 1 Reply 22, posted (10 months 3 weeks 3 days 21 hours ago) and read 4173 times:
Quoting BigJKU (Reply 21): I would and do disagree with this. At the time of inception this might have made sense but at this point the role the A-10 would have played against a large, advancing mechanized force would be played by fast aircraft using CBU-97/105's which would be far more effective in that role. In its original role I think the A-10 is pretty much done. But like you said, it will be around for a long while because it can be cheaply operated as a persistent presence in a low threat air environment.
Fair point, in my own head I was thinking of when it first entered service but thats not the way I wrote it. The A-10 probably still serves as a deterent but you are right that sensor fuzed weapons are a much lower risk solution to a large scale deployment of tanks in modern warfare.
sweair From Sweden, joined Nov 2011, 1546 posts, RR: 0 Reply 23, posted (10 months 3 weeks 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 4035 times:
I just looked at some A-10 clips from YouTube, damn that sound the cannon makes is scary, there is one clip where British soldiers are a bit too close for comfort, they must have soiled their pants..scary killing machine, brutal.
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