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A-10 Thunderbolt II

Posted By: lout
A-10 Thunderbolt II

A-10 Thunderbolt II (Detail & Scale 19) By Dana Bell
Publisher: Arms and Armour 1989 | 72 Pages | ISBN: 0853686548 | PDF | 21 MB


It is curious that most of us still regard the A-10 as a new and exciting aircraft The last A-10 left the Fairchild pro­duction lines in March of 1984, twelve years after the first YA-10 rolled out in 1972. In those twelve years, 715 A-10's were built, and, with the exception of the two prototypes and one tandem-seat modification, the basic airframe design has remained unchanged: simple and unsophisti­cated. So far, the operational years of the A-10 have been relatively peaceful; even though a handful of Warthogs were deployed to the Caribbean during 1983's invasion of Granada, none saw action over the island. Yet a baptism of fire might have had one minor advantage: it could have ended a debate that has hounded the Hog since its earliest day. The Press, military, Congress, and the public will prob­ably continue to argue whether such a slow, uncomplicated aircraft can survive ground attack missions in the high threat arena. Although many in the U.S. Air Force express faith in the concept and the aircraft, that faith has not been echoed by overseas orders - the USAF has been Fairchild Republic's only customer! Partly, this can be attributed to economic considerations, with few nations willing to invest in an aircraft dedicated solely to eliminating ground threats. Many would prefer attaching the mission to an existing high speed fighter, or an attack helicopter, or even a high altitude bomber. Britain's new Tornado for example, can attack ground targets and still fly to altitude and mix it up with Floggers and Fishbeds. But when it comes to standing and slugging it out with ground forces, the A-10 is still the best aircraft to do the job. Although its top speed is slow, most strike aircraft would have to limit themselves to the same regime to be certain of hitting their targets. No other aircraft can carry as much ordnance over a target for so long, doling out and taking as much punishment, returning to an unimproved field to quickly turn around and strike at an enemy again. So the A-10 stands ready to perform the mission for which it was designed, the world's premier ground attack aircraft.


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