500N wrote

"The A-10 was designed with survivability with other factors such as placing the engines up and back. The Apache also seems to have been built with survivability.

Have any other aircraft been built like these"

Su-25 looks handy.

The Nylon bands are not exposed to heat very long....the time lapse from leaving the magazine entering the Barrel....and exiting the noisy end is....well....rather short you know!

Yes, just being Devil's advocate Luddite; certainly saves on copper.
Bas - one time 25pdr gunfitter. Just had a thought: there must be tons of the stuff scattered around historic artillery ranges - and, at todays prices :hmm:

"Yes, just being Devil's advocate Luddite; certainly saves on copper"

I think you'll find the biggest saving is not the copper saved by putting
two plastic bands on the bullet but the amount of barrels saved from needing
replacement because of reduced wear.

ISTR that nearly all the panels on the A10 are reversible i.e. a starboard bit can also be fitted on the port side. Now that's what I call joined up thinking ...

I read that again the other day. Very clever thinking.

Bet the team who designed this got a kicking for this, no multiple spares, designed to last longer etc etc

Almost as if they did everything to run counter to everything else designed for flight.

Yes, probably, but what if it was a major selling point against the other aircraft.
Some business is better than none.

Also, battlefield damage repairs, 2 aircraft shot up on different sides,
makes it easier to replace and get one going and ship the other one back
to the US for repair.

Those photos of the soldiers repairing them are very interesting.

But it seems to have been a mindset of design and build so pilot would have a pretty good chance of survival even after aircraft getting blasted to pieces.

It appears unique among what is flying today.

4200 shots per minute (10 per second per barrel, 14ms/16m apart leaving the gun), 2.3-m long barrels and an 1100m/s muzzle velocity, the acceleration down the barrel is 26,000g for 4ms - there's a round in any one barrel for 4% of its time, and one in the gun for over a quarter of the time.

It's quite an impressive machine. Even more impressive on a ship under radar control dealing with incoming problems on a five second timescale - unless the problems have jammers, in which case lidar might still tip the scales in favor of the goalkeeper.

Hmm, The Warthog may not be going away anytime soon, or at least quietly:

Politicians shouldn't eliminate something because its Ugly..............Hilary would have had to have been gone.........hmmmm need to reconsider that idea.

Yes a very clever design, semi retractable wheels so it can land gear up, triple main spars for survivability, engines protected by the wing and a titanium tube for the cockpit.

Another cleverly designed aircraft was the Mooney, the rudder was the same as the elevators.

Both the Dakota, and 1900 have "semi-conformal wheels". The Budgie as I recall could swap elevators, and ailerons side/side. The Dash-8 the geardoors are the same as well I think. Reducing the spares pipeline always pays dividends

A-10 - Titanium tub for pilot with "plastic" lid. Rolls in on target round enters via "lid" and hey presto an instant blender as round looks for way out!:rolleyes:

Given V. Putin's recent ambitions regarding former eastern bloc states -

I bet that citizens of Poland, Hungary, et.al. might wish the A-10 was still within the NATO arsenal.

Maj. Jack Hudson, the AF Museum director and an A-10 pilot, recently spoke at an engineers' luncheon, and had great praise for the aircraft and weapon system.

Regarding maintenance & repair: Constant-chord "barndoor" wing means all ribs come from the same dies. Ditto the fuselage formers. Building new wings (per Boeing contract) is about as simple as a late-model airplane gets.

I was reading somewhere about the A-10 and battle damage and apart from both sides being the same and wings described as above, instead of shipping some wrecks back to the US they made one working aircraft out of three damaged ones. I wish I could find the link again.

Was sort of thinking the "new" smaller Ukraine might like to take a few off you. There armed forces have been neglected for several years.

Why Congress May Let Air Force Retire The A-10

Image in original article too large to paste here

CAPITOL HILL: Aside from Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the reaction from Capitol Hill to the Air Force plan for retiring the ugly and beloved A-10 has been relatively muted and may remain so. Why would Congress, beloved for going slightly nuts whenever the military tries to retire a ship, aircraft squadron, or anything else that means jobs in their districts or states, not rail against this sweet plane going quietly into the night? They will be replaced at most A-10 bases by F-16s, C-130Js or KC-135s so few or no jobs or money will be lost.

The Air Force has crafted a plan in stark contrast to its efforts last year to trim assets. And the reaction to this one has, so far, been quite muted. The slide above, which depicts the shifts and their timing, was part of a detailed briefing to professional staff and Military Legislative Aides in the last week that included classified assessments of the various tradeoffs the Air Force considered to save the $3.7 billion the Air Force expects to save. Among the scenarios gamed: sending the entire B-1 bomber fleet to the boneyard; pushing 40 F-35 As to the far out years; and retiring 356 F-16s. The Air Force, Chief of Staff Mark Welsh told me after today’s House Armed Services Committee hearing, ran war games to assess the impacts of each action. The retirement of the A-10 fleet was found to be the least disruptive to America’s global capabilities.

Members did discuss the A-10 today at today’s House hearing, including Rep. Vicky Hartzler. Whiteman Air Force Base, home to an A-10 Reserve unit, sits in her district. She was not convinced by the Air Force’s arguments saying she did not ”agree that a B-1″ can do the same job as an A-10. The Air Force argues that precision weapons have replaced the need for the A-10′s depleted uranium cannon shells. Hartzler said she believes ground troops “want to see the A-10 coming over that horizon.”

Several other members voiced what sounded like pro-forma objections to the A-10′s retirements. When Welsh answered their objections they appeared to accept his explanations. Gen. Welsh brings a certain authority to the issue, having been an A-10 pilot himself.

Here’s how the transfers will work. In 2016, for example, the National Guard A-10 unit at Selfridge will switch to KC-135s. And Hartzler’s Reserve A-10 unit at Whiteman would receive F-16s from Hill. So the bases will switch missions and aircraft, but few people or money will be lost. Those are deals to which Congress may well agree.

Sounds like adjusting the mission to match the resources, and not the other way 'round.

:=

ORAC: When it comes right down to it, that's an excellent argument for transferring the Warthog to the Army. They know better than anyone what they require!

Quote:

---

When it comes right down to it, that's an excellent argument for transferring the Warthog to the Army

---

I see your point barit1, but I'm not sure what that would achieve in this instance.

If the problem was with the level of A-10 service that the USAF is providing the army, then transfer of control would make sense, but that's not what's at issue here.

The issue here is funding, and the army has its own pressures to contend with. Given the option of supporting its Abrams or the A-10, it also might well choose to cut the A-10 for the very same reason that the USAF is.

Reality is that every service is being reduced in size. That is a final reality.

The only question is: "What are we going to cut?"

Do we keep what we have (aging, and designed for the Cold War mass-combat scenario) and completely cut the new replacement aircraft that are more capable and adaptable (with the exception of the A-10's single narrow specialty)?

Do we cut the current force in order to built a more-capable and flexible replacement (even though in smaller numbers)?


And if we choose the latter, then more choices are needed:

Do we cut the large numbers of useful modernized multi-role aircraft to keep a single-role aircraft?

Or do we cut the "niche" aircraft and keep those useful in a wide range of missions and scenarios?

Oh yeah, so what new aircraft might that be do tell....your ultra vulnerable F35 by chance:ok:

Bloomberg weighs in
 

Combat Vets Champion Warthog Plane Brass Wants Scrapped - Bloomberg

Take a look at the comments - many are very insightful...

Bottom line, would the ground pounders be better off with a few hundred A-10s, or a couple dozen F-35s.

seems odd to cut the Warthog just when the Russian hordes are massing again

Maybe NATO should buy them..................................

Swap them for the Harriers we gave the Yanks for peanuts.............hat, coat...............

Give them to the Ukrainians as aid.

I like the way you think. :ok::E

And would be flying in someone elses Air Force in less than a year as Ukranian arms dealers take a nice big cut and declare they were not suitable.

It's an ill wind as blows nobody any good, right? :ok:

Figure they would get used but likely against US...................politicians will say that it was unrealistic to have seen that outcome.

http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225...jFcTCJWXNQ.jpg

Bill Sweetman's A-10 book gave me a real soft spot for the aircraft. As with all this series, he gave a detailed account of the design philosophy.

The designers were given, if I recall correctly, a maximum price of $80 per Lb for the airframe. If it couldn't be met, they had to use a cheaper material or process.

As others have mentioned, the A10 was designed to continue flying with a tailplane half, engine and outer wing panel all shot away.

I was on the TF34 development/deployment team, & visited Farmingdale when the prototypes were being assembled. The cost and survivability disciplines were very much in evidence. I even met Kartveli, who maintained a desk in the engineering office. He thought it the ugliest aircraft ever, but fully understood the mission and requirements.

The unique and biggest airframe/engine integration issue would be gun gas ingestion into the engines, but the GAU-8/A gun was the be-all and end-all of a successful program. GE had a lot of work in solving the inevitable ingestion problems, but got the job done. :)

ILA Berlin
 

Apparently in a week and half at IlA Berlin there are is an A-10 making an appearance , I'm attending anyhow so will find out more!

Cheers

Supposed to be two A-10's attending ILA, guess they're coming from across the pond, since the 81st packed it in last summer...

-RP

An interesting update covered in the Military Times ...

Full story here ...

Military Times : HASC Approval : A-10 Future

Comes down to the decision been made and ever body saying Yes, Yes Yes etc

Then they talk to the people who use it and the response was "Like F*** you are retiring it.

Yessers decided need to relook at program.

If the A10 had been retired before there were F35s to replace it and the bases that it operated from shuttered, there would not be a need for so many F35s, thus the program unit cost goes up, or was the plan to retire the A10, keep the bases open fully staffed with no planes?

Surely if there was a plan to retire a platform, most if not all the infrastructure associated with the platform will be retired and crews reassigned or released from service, unless the training pipeline was to have been turned off whilst the A10 crews are retrained onto an intermediate aircraft (F15 and F16?) until the F35 gains IOC and is in full rate production.....