THE A-10 -- HOW IT CAME ABOUT



What a weapons system!!!







First there was this gun...







It was developed by General Electric, the "We bring good things to life" people.



It's one of the modern-day Gatling guns. It shoots very big bullets. It



shoots them very quickly.







Someone said, "Let's put it in an airplane."







Someone else said, "Better still, let's build an airplane around



it."







So they did. And "they" were the Fairchild-Republic airplane



people.







And they had done such a good job with an airplane they developed back in



WWII...







...called



the P-47 Thunderbolt, they decided to call it the A10



Thunderbolt.







They made it so it was very good at flying low and slow and shooting things with that



fabulous gun.







But since it did fly low and slow, they made it bulletproof, or almost so. A lot of



bad guys have found you can shoot an A10 with anything from a pistol to a 23mm



Soviet cannon and it just keeps on flying and



shooting.







When they got through, it looked like this...







It's not sleek and sexy like an F18 or the stealthy Raptors and such, but I think



it's such a great airplane because it does what it does better than any other



plane in the world.







It kills tanks.







Not only tanks, as Sadam Hussein's boys found out to their horror, but armored



personnel carriers, radar stations, locomotives, bunkers, fuel depots...just



about anything the bad guys thought was bulletproof turned out to be easy



pickings for this beast.







See those engines. One of them alone will fly this puppy. The pilot sits in a very



thick titanium alloy "bathtub."







That's typical of the design.







They were smart enough to make every part the same whether mounted on the left side



or right side of the plane, like landing gear, for instance.







Because the engines are mounted so high (away from ground debris) and the landing gear



uses such low pressure tires, it can operate from a damaged airport, interstate



highway, plowed field, or dirt road.







Everything is redundant. They have two of almost everything. Sometimes they have three of



something. Like flight controls. There's triple redundancy of those, and



even if there is a total failure of the double hydraulic system, there is a set



of manual flying controls.







Capt. Kim Campbell sustained this damage over Bagdad and flew for another hour before



returning to base.







But about that gun...







It's so hard to grasp just how powerful it is.







This



is the closest I could find to showing you just what this cartridge is all



about. What the guy is holding is NOT the 30mm round, but a "little" .50 Browing



machinegun round and the 20mm cannon round which has been around for a long



time.







The



30mm is MUCH bigger.







Down at the bottom are the .50 BMG and 20x102 Vulcan the fellow was holding. At the



bottom right is the bad boy we're discussing.







Let's get some perspective here: The .223 Rem (M16 rifle round) is fast. It shoots a



55 or so grain bullet at about 3300 feet/sec, give or take. It's the fastest of



all those rounds shown (except one). When you move up to the .30 caliber rounds,



the bullets jump up in weight to 160-200 grains. Speeds run from about 2600 to



3000 fps or so.







The .338 Lapua is the king of the sniper rifles these days and shoots a 350 grain



bullet at 2800 fps or so. They kill bad guys at over a mile with that



one.







The .50 BMG is really big. Mike Beasley has one on his desk. Everyone who picks it



up thinks it's some sort of fake, unless they know big ammo. It's really huge



with a bullet that weighs 750 grains and goes as fast the



Lapua.







I



don't have data on the Vulcan, but hang on to your



hat.







The bullet for the 30x173 Avenger has an aluminum jacket around a spent uranium core



and weighs 6560 grains (yes, over 100 times as heavy as the M16 bullet, and



flies through the air at 3500 fps (which is faster than the M16 as



well).







The gun shoots at a rate of 4200 rounds per minute. Yes, four thousand.



Pilots typically shoot either one- or two-second burst which set loose 70 to 150



rounds. The system is optimized for shooting at 4,000



feet.







OK, the best for last.







You've got a pretty good idea of how big that cartridge is, but I'll bet you're like me



and you don't fully appreciate how big the GA GAU-8 Avenger really



is.







Take a look...







Each



of those seven barrels is 112" long. That's almost ten feet. The entire gun is



19-1/2 feet long.







Think



how impressive it would look set up in your living



room.







Oh,



by the way, it doesn't eject the empty shells but runs them back into the



storage drum. There's just so dang many flying out, they felt it might damage



the aircraft.







Like



I said, this is a beautiful



design.