A10 Gun Footage and Sound Track

[charliegolf]

I was looking at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AicqBhHvGlA (Sorry can't do vid in post.)

... and at about 1:20, the pilot seems to fire two rounds- individual reports and impacts are seen, before the brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I would have expected. That forllows, and the hits are observed.

Just wondering what that's all about? Any ideas?

CG

[Rossian]

.....how about "sighting shots"? When using the 20mm guns on the Shack shooting at flame floats in the water - a couple of rounds gave an indication of the fall of shot, because when a sustained burst was fired the ring and bead sight disappeared in the humungous vibration set up.

The Ancient Mariner

[Dan Gerous]

Those first 2 "rounds" are rockets being fired from a pod on the port wing, not the gun.

[Al R]

Sighters maybe? The first two impacts weren't main armament.

[Rosevidney1]

I contacted my old A-10 driver friend who replies:
Nice vid. That looks like where I went through A-10 RTU. It was a gruelling course where they crammed 2 weeks of training into 4 months.


Start the video again and be ready to pause it quickly at the 8 second point. You'll notice he has 2.75 inch rocket pods outboard of his Maverick missiles.


What he did was arm those stations and the gun. When he rolled in, he armed his master arm switch which made the gun and both rocket pods hot. The sight for the rocket is different on the HUD display from the gun sight. He lined up the rocket sight and pressed the pickle button on the stick and one rocket fired from each pod. He then transitioned to his gun sight and pulled the trigger on the stick which turned on the gun. The rockets launched first but the cannon shells were so much faster, they almost beat the rockets to the target.


It's an odd weapons combination for that target set. He might have been marking the target with the two rockets for other aircraft while at the same time suppressing the target area with the gun.

[charliegolf]

Thanks for the responses- my uneducated guess was that they were markers. Rockets makes sense too.

CG

[Compass Call]

Sounds like somebody ripping a F**T after a good night on the curry!!

[Dan Gerous]

Found this on the toob, shows the rockets being used. I was reading an article recently and they had a ground shot of a 4 shot rocket launcher with 5" rockets, white phosphorous, and the article said they were used for target identification.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=52418733-0-2a60-9983-1a1132f710&feature=iv&src_vid=K2Lg-x1tAyE&v=-8jcwlraleU

[Simplythebeast]

There four A10s flying in to Lakenheath on Friday morning for a weeks detachment. They will be using the ranges at Holbeach and Donna Nook next week if anyone fancies seeing that for real!

[Martin the Martian]

Superb footage.

I was amused that the inevitable advert prior to the footage was for The Guardian newspaper membership scheme. Not really hitting the demographic, are they?