A-10s - Yes please
 

Just a quick line of thanks to the A-10 boys in the unlikley prospect that they are PPRuNing

Nice to see a two ship operating around Norwich this PM, bit lower next time please, just like old times......now if we can get some F1-11s.......

Also a pair of A10s using Wainfleet today, making a horrendous noise with the cannon by all accounts. Naturally I wasn't home and missed it all.

You will find the whole 81st FS based at Lakenheath for a month or two at the moment!

Two pair twice actually and a pair of Pave Hawk.

A10 impressive? See the PH.

If you want to see and hear some F-111's, head down under while their still here. I think its 2010 when they start getting paid off.:(

Talking about A-10s, I was at a firepower demo on Salisbury Plain some years ago and the pongoes, who were more used to seeing Harriers and Jaguars strafing at comparatively short range, erected the seating in the usual place for us visitors to get a good view of the aircraft firing and their results. A pair of A-10s pitched up and did all of their firing some considerable distance behind us, so we missed the most exciting bits. The results were impressive, though. That's the GAU-7 for you.

Pardon?

(redundant characters added to meet the 10 character minumum requirement)

Razor 61 revealed....
"You will find the whole 81st FS based at Lakenheath for a month or two at the moment!"
Aviate1138 asks...
Is their Nav capability better than it used to be???? I do hope so :)
Aviate1138

A-10
 

On a realistic note,

The A-10 ( with state of the art targeting systems - Litening 3 etc - and decent IFF on all concerned ) is EXACTLY the aircraft in great need by several forces right now - forget dogfighting F-22's & Typhoons !

DZ

Used to work at Holbeach when the A10s were regular customers. The Avenger is awsome. I recall we used to invite visitors to experience the first strafe from the balcony outside. The idea was that we should try and estimate how high they jumped when the wall of noise hit them.

Great fun

Doc C

DZ

And there I was thinking that the Typhoon was getting Litening 3, lots of bombs and a gun.....oh well, back to dogfighting

'a' gun maybe - but not THE gun - and which is hardened for ground fire ?

GAU-12
 

Which raises the question (AGAIN!!) why the GR7/9 hasn't been modded to take the Equalizer (sp!) after the cancellation (failure?) of ADEN 25!!!

Yours grumpily,

S41

Wonder who decided 25mm for the Aden from the earlier 30mm and why the Mauser uses 27mm?

Was the later to use captured Russian ammuntion or the other way about?

Was the change from 30 - 25 'cause it was 16% less therefore would save 16% in the budget? :}

Or were both space/weight saving?

But if 20mm was good enough for the world's largest air force was it necessary to specify equipment that could not be off the shelf?

Aden 25mm
 

I photographed the whole sorry development of the 25mm.

The idea was it would fire bursts a lot faster than the untrendy 30mm.

The HUD had a burst counter / limiter which I thought a good idea.

Snag was the metallurgy wasn't up to the ( flawed ) theory, so it fired it's own innards along with the shell - they didn't develop the gatling gun all those years ago for no reason - barrel cooling .

Dunsfold armoury tried valiantly but the thing was a lemon.

I completely agree the GAU-12 should be fitted, but that would be admitting to a cock-up, wouldn't it ?!

The 'gun pods' were used for ECM gear for a while, but now that seems to have gone, leaving just strakes.

Calling Hog drivers
 

Any chance of flying the Mighty 'Bolt at RIAT please? I see you are down as statics but that manouverability(sp) is allways appreciated. See how many Follow Me trucks you can draw a bead on?!:ok:

So is GAU-12 feasible?
 

00,

Very interesting, many thanks. Does this mean that GR7/9s are able to carry GAU-12, and if not, what modification would be required?

S41

GAU-12 on GR7 / 9
 

Your guess is as good as mine, obviously it would need the mechanical & electrical attachments, but seeing as the GR5 ( from which all the 7's & 9's are adapted ) was meant to carry gunpods, can't see it would take much effort.

I wouldn't mind betting it's been seriously considered, then whoever was doing the considering got slapped on the wrist for political reasons, mainly company rather than nationally.

Royal Ordnance, who came up with the thing, had just been absorbed by BAe at the time.

We even had mahogany gunpods full of cameras on the GR5 trials !

For that matter,there must be a lot of 30mm Aden packs around, why not use them ? Can't believe they couldn't be made to fit. Not as trendy in terms of rate of fire - the Aden itself was a development of a WW2 German gun - but it's still something not to be on the wrong end of.

I know we're not supposed to mention other websites, but if you were to put 'Harrier' into a search engine, find a large UK site ( brilliantly done by Michael Pryce ) then go to the history section, then scroll to 'Harrier Testing' you might find my masterpiece with relevant photo's...

The Hog was designed as a jet AROUND its gun - ie 'We have a gun, so lets design a platform around it'. Result - A-10 (THE most requested air asset in Theatre right now) To consider strapping one to an existing airframe is simply asking for trouble.
BTW - I thought that the Typhoon was going to the 'stan in July 08...I hear that your viffing dudes have all been burnt out - as have the jets.

Guns
 

Well apart from the A-10 - a great aircraft but in dire need of 21st century avionics, which I understand it's getting now - we used to work alongside them at West Freugh -

A lot of aircraft have guns 'hung on' - seemed to work well on the Harrier 1, as quite a few Argentinian pilots & troops will affirm.

The Hawk does well with a single 30mm gunpod too ( built in Mauser 27mm on the Hawk 200 ) - during a sales tour Jim Hawkins hit a can on a post with a single shot.

( with an A-10 even the previous existence of the post would be a matter of debate ! )