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A-10 Thunderbolt II
From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium
A United States Air Force attack aircraft, heavily armored, with a built-in antitank gun, low speed and long endurance. Essentially, it is the antithesis of the traditional USAF model of the fighter, but an excellent close air support and battlefield air interdiction aircraft appreciated by ground troops. Its fundamental design derives from the WWII Sovier Il-2 Stormovik. It can loiter for long periods over the battlefield, and fly low, slow, and accurately when cooperating with ground troops. With operational experience, it has been found that the A-10 is complementary to the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior scout armed helicopter. It can also communicate with high-performance fighter-bombers such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
While it officially is called the Thunderbolt II, as what may be the ugliest aircraft in the history of the USAF, if not military aviation, it is known as the Warthog. That name is used with great respect by the ground troops it supports.
The A-10 can survive much more battle damage than other aircraft, but it is marginally, at best, effective when the opponent has modern air defense. Experience in the Gulf War, as well as in simulated NATO-Warsaw Pact combat, showed that suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) was necessary before the A-10's full capability was useful. For the close support environment for which it was optimized, one approach would be to cooperated with scout and attack helicopters, which would hover behind a hill or other terrain cover, then, as the A-10s came close, destroy low-level antiaircraft weapons such as the ZSU-23-4 mobile anti-aircraft artillery piece, as welland SA-6 GAINFUL and SA-8 GECKO surface-to-air missiles.
Attempts were made to retire it in favor of higher-performance Air Force airplanes, but it had established a niche. The OA-10 version provides fire direction as well as direct attack.
The A-10, however, is due to be replaced by the F-35A Lightning II, the USAF version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. This aircraft, which also replaces the F-16, is a high-performance fighter-bomber, not a "low and slow" armored attack airplane.
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Original Aircraft
First flown in May 1972, [1] Originally manufactured by Fairchild, since 1987 the prime contractor for the A-10 has been Northrop Grumman. A total of 707 were built, with 350 still in service with the regular Air Force, the US Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard.
Weapons
The basic design centered around the heaviest gun system, in terms of combined rate of fire and energy of projectiles, ever built for an aircraft. As large as a Volkswagen Beetle, the 30mm GAU-8 fires 30mm antitank rounds, typically made of depleted uranium.
For other weapons, the A-10 commonly carries up to ten [[aircraft has 11 stores pylons, providing an external load capacity of 7,260kg. There are three pylons under the fuselage and the loads can be configured to use either the centre-line pylon or the two flanking fuselage pylons. Where more standoff range is needed, it can carry up to ten AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missiles. When it needs self-defense, it can carry the AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
For weapon guidance, the aircraft can be fitted with Pave Penny laser guidance / electronic support measures, pod installed on the starboard fuselage pylon. Each wing carries four stores pylons: three outboard and one inboard of the wheel fairing.
Its pylons can carry a wide range of other munitions, includingthe Mk. 82 low-drag gravity bomb, BLU-1 and BLU-27/B Rockeye II cluster bombs and the cluster bomb unit CBU-52/71.
Sensors
A-10's use Northrop Grumman Litening ER (Extended Range) targeting pod, which includes 640 x 512 pixel thermal imager, CCD TV, laser rangefinder, IR marker and laser designator. The pilot can wear night-vision goggles and also look through the electro-optical imaging displays of the Maverick AGM-65.
Survivability
Once the gun system was placed, other features were intended to increase survivability. The pilot sits in a titanium-armored "bathtub", which has a large bulletproof bubble canopy, for good all-round vision.
The cockpit is equipped with a head-up display, for targeting and weapon aiming, a Have-Quick secure radio communications system, inertial navigation and a Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN) system. A-10s have two engines so they can fly back with one, and they are mounted above the horizontal stabilizer in the tail to avoid ground fire.
The aircraft can survive direct hits from armor-piercing and high explosive projectiles up to 23mm. Their self-sealing fuel cells are protected by internal and external foam. Manual systems back up their redundant hydraulic flight-control systems. This permits pilots to fly and land when hydraulic power is lost. [2]
