The Fairchild Republic A-10 Lightning-bolter simply the hog is one of the most iconic planes in the US Air Force, a plane developed in the middle of the cold war with a specific type of warfare in mind if the Cold War turned hot, one area was destined to become a battleground, a 50-kilometer corridor of lowland Valley's called the Fulda gap, where any invading troops would be channeled on their march from East-Germany to West-Germany, it was the shortest route to France Frankfurt, and the strategically important Rhine River, if war broke out this corridor would be a vital region to secure and each side of the Fulda gap was defended by armored divisions to cope with this threat to Environment U.S. developed an operational doctrine called air-land battle, and the A-10 was developed as avital component of this strategy alow-flying tank killer which would work closely with the troops on the ground to break up enemy formations at the front, while high-flying bombers harassed the supply lines at the rear. The A-10 was a plane designed specifically for the role of close air support. Close air support is exactly that close to friendly forces and close to unfriendly forces, it requires a plane to be capable of absorbing a great deal of damage as they come under fire and to be incredibly accurate, where its weapons to avoid friendly fire.
A plane with this role needs some unique qualities it needs to be available at a moment's notice in an ever-evolving battlefield. Troops could need support without warning, and because of this the plane needs to be nearby and ready to go, this means working from forwarding bases that may not necessarily have all the infrastructure and equipment that other planes need. topper at its survivability needs to be in class. flying this close to the ground is going to result in every man with a weapon taking potshots at the plane, as a result, the plane needs to be capable of dealing with small arms machine guns anti-aircraft guns, and even missiles. A tense frequently limp back to their base would damage so severe that they would have downed another plane with parts of their wings ripped off, with an engine taken out, and hydraulics on operational, and coming with this the plane needs to be simple and cheap. To manufacture, the air force made it clear from the beginning, in a battle of cost versus performance cost would be prioritized, in an all-out war with the Soviets quantity and ease of manufacturing was going to be a huge factor, like the Sherman and the T-34 tanks which were so influential in world war 2.
A future war between the Soviets and the US was expected to be won by whoever could out manufacture and maintain their equipment, this plane was intended to be a cheap and rugged warhorse it needed to be made with readily available off-the-shelf parts, so maintenance crews could easily interchange parts to repair the damage quickly, and at a low cost.
Contractors bidding for the manufacturing contract needed to consider all of these factors and designed the entire plane around the primary ornament which was chosen before the design process started, the General Electric gau-8/a a gun whose sound is so recognizable, it has become a meme. The gun takes up a significant portion of the plane's internal volume, at nearly 6 meters long fitting snugly below the pilot. The largest part of the gun is the ammo drum which typically holds 1,150 30 mm rounds. The rounds are delivered to the 7 rotating barrels along with a linkless shoot system which also pulls the shell casings back into the ammo drum after firing to prevent the expanded shells from damaging the plane. The belt system and the rotating confirming system of the barrels are both driven by a hydraulic motor which is powered by two independent hydraulic systems onboard. There are two separate hydraulic systems to ensure redundant see in operation and both run the gun.
The left and right hydraulic systems are pressurized by two identical engine-driven pumps on the left and right engines. If an engine is lost or one of the hydraulic lines is broken then the controls powered by those hydraulics ceased to work however the plane has been designed to allow it to continue flying on only one hydraulic system, as both elevators, both ailerons, and one rudder have hydraulic power, after the loss of either hydraulic lines ensuring powered control of pitch roll and yaw even after the loss of a single hydraulic system if both are lost, the plane can switch to a manual reversion flight control system, Where the controls can be operated without power assists which is difficult, to say the least, but it can allow the pilot to land the plane safely or at the very least allow them to get into safe airspace to eject. This kind of redundancy can be found in every component of the A10 to increase survivability. The landing gear is retracted by the LES system only, but it can be extended by both, and in the event neither system is available. The wing-mounted landing gear doesn't actually retract all the way into the pharynx, which allows the plane to land with the landing gear retracted. With only moderate damage to the plane protecting the control mechanisms through redundancy is just one component of increasing survivability. The fuel tanks are self-sealing on the lower-portions and are filled with foam to prevent explosions. The A-10 like all planes can fly with significant armor covering, every portion of the plane so they just protect the most vital component on the plane, the stick operator otherwise known as the pilot who sits inside a titanium tub, which is reported to be capable of absorbing direct hits from armor-piercing rounds up to 23 mm, the canopy is also made from ballistic glass capable of taking hits from small-arms but this isn't the type of plane to be flying upside down over the battlefield, this is more for shrapnel from anti-aircraft fire and missiles.
The A-10 also carries more chaff and flares than any US air legacy fighter chaff is radar reflective material that confuses radar-controlled missiles. while flares confuse heat-seeking missiles with four dispensers located in the landing gear pods and another four on the outer wingtips, for a total of sixteen across both wings which can be triggered automatically by radar and laser detection systems, on the nose and wingtips of the plane, or simply fired manually by the pilot. One of the most striking features of the A-10 is its strange engine placement and tail configuration, and this too was a design feature to thwart enemies with heat-seeking missiles. The engines and tail were arranged like this to mask the infrared signature of the hot exhaust of the plane which could be used to lock onto the plane by IR missiles, on the ground the tail would look more at home. on world war two bomber which was designed to be stable, stability was an important part of the A-10s design. The large vertical stabilizers helped keep the plane on target as it fires its insanely powerful gun. The gun is mounted directly on the centerline of the plane to minimize the effect of the recoil pushing. The plane off-target the recoil force at 44.5 kilonewtons is so powerful that it effectively halves the planes, for thrust as each of the A-10's General Electric t-34 engines produces just 41 kilonewtons of thrust, but the plane fires in such short bursts typically one to two seconds that the pilot doesn't need to worry about Stalling.
The high engines mounted behind the wings also reduced the amount of dirt and dust that can enter the engines from forward-operating base runways, which can be just dirt runways a lot of design choices were made to allow the plane to operate from remote airfield slike this. Smaller military planes like this don't typically have auxiliary power units which are small secondary engines that large planes like airliners have, you can see the exhaust of these little hidden engines in the tails of airliners, these engines allow the plane to start its main engines without external help, and help run functions like electricity generation and hydraulic fluid pumps, but it's a necessary weight for most small aircraft and they usually use some other way to get the engine spinning, sometimes this results in the plane relying on ground equipment. which the A-10 cannot depend on, and so an AP was installed between the two potted engines you can see the exhaust of the APU just underneath the nacelle x' here some of the most interesting design challenges arose from the sheer power of the aircraft's gun.
The gun spits out so much burnt, on a burnt propellant that they actually lost an early model in 1978 after exhaust, gas from the gun ignited and starved the engines of oxygen. To deal with this some design changes were made, first, a small gas scoop was placed underneath the barrels to suck in some of that exhaust. the chemical mixture of the round propellant was changed to increase the flashes of present levels, this, in turn, caused secondary problems as the new chemical mixture caused residue to buildup on the cockpit windows, and a canopy washer was needed which simply sprayed the washing fluid onto the canopy, and the slipstream did the rest of the work.
The circuitry was also added to force the engine ignition system to continually fire while the gun trigger was being pulled, so that in the event a flame-out occurred the engine could rekindle its flame immediately the GAU-8 avenger is a monstrous machine designed to wreak havoc, on those Soviet tanks attempting to push through Allied lines. To do this they need heavy armor-piercing rounds the rounds are truly massive at 30millimetres and sprinkled throughout these rounds are rounds made of aluminum with a depleted uranium core. Uranium is insanely dense at 19. g/cm^3 lead in comparison is 11.3 g/cm^3 and iron is 7.9 this density gives the round more kinetic energy for armor-piercing the depleted uranium also ablates material in a way that self sharpens the projector while tungsten which is slightly denser than uranium tends to mushroom out and dopes itself upon impact.
There is currently 700000 metric tons of depleted uranium stored as uranium hexafluoride in huge storage cylinders across America costing uranium enrichment facilities a great amount in maintenance. they are simply delighted when someone gets it off their hands and fires it at high speed into a country thousands of miles away, it's a cheap and freely available resource and has the perfect material properties for armor-piercing, but the efficiency of using depleted uranium is obviously not good. Many war-torn regions have blamed their use for elevated cases of cancer.
The A-10 has been under constant threat of retirement detractors have pushed from the very start that the plane is not needed, first it was the F-16 which should take over its job, and now it's the f-35 and both sides of the argument have valid points the f-16 and A10 can carry similar amounts of ordnance into the battlefield, if needed both have 11 hardpoints where the carrying capacity is over 7.2 tonnes but attaching heavy equipment to its wings negates the biggest advantage of the f-16, its maneuverability and ability to conserve kinetic energy in dog fights.
The f-16 was designed to be a multi-role fighter while the a-10 was designed for one job and one job only getting down, and dirty, and taken some punches, like Rocky while modern planes like the f-35 were designed to be more for weaving illusive striking and moving out of the enemy's range before they can react, the two planes were designed in completely different eras with completely different military idea in mind and trying to compare the two without acknowledging that is silly the f-35 is designed to carry a small payload of weapons in its internal weapons Bay, while stealth is a high priority but it can carry just as much as the f-16, when air superiority is established it's a multi-role fighter designed for the modern battlefield, ultimately the a-10 found a role in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan where the threat level and sophistication of enemy weaponry was relatively low, like the battles expected in the folder gap in the 1980s the a-10 persists today because it excels in its role as a close air support vehicle, and it's low cost of running compared to other military planes has kept it competitive allowing us to be in the vanguard for military operations today he planed the infantry can see coming over the horizon like Gandalf arriving into helms deep to lift the siege. it became an iconic aircraft among the soldiers on the ground a bond has formed between us and the infantry It protects but just as the a-10 was created in preparation for an anticipated next-generation war the f-35was created with future Wars in mind where the threat environment will be so dense that simply being able to take a punch won't save us.
The nature of close air support has continually evolved over the past century in world war ii tactical air forces were created specifically for providing close air support to the troops landing in Normandy on the d-day range for these fighters was a major tactical issue, and within 24 hours of the first men landing in Normandy, three new emergency landing strips had been created off the beaches which would allow the Allies to extend their fighter bomber range and prevent a fierce counter-attack by the Germans.
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