Upcoming shoot-out to see what's the best CAS aircraft ~ A-10 vs. F-35...
"...comparison evaluations starting in 2018" So guess that means the A-10 will be around for at least 3 more yrs while they figure out how to properly utilize the F-35 after 20yrs of development.
How long would a shot-up F-35 take to be repaired and returned to the forward operating base ? The F-35 has the stand-off toys. Can it operate in the mud and not break down ? If it chooses to do so, the A.F. can slant the tests without much effort. The silk scarf syndrome must still be around.
When I was in Boise a few weeks ago all the strike Eagles from Mountain Home were there on the ramp as well. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yes, the F-35 is more of a stand-off weapons platform. Lot's of interesting commentary on that linked site.
Yeah, they are normally at Mountain Home which is about 20-30 minute drive away. I had not spent any time in Boise until a few weeks ago and was really liking what I saw. If there was a job opportunity there I would jump on it. As it is I'm staying in the south for a bit longer though I will be moving to something new and unique soon
Hmm, let's see. Both are excellent Birds of Prey. One location is a tropical island whereas the other a land-locked high desert. However, the latter still fly's the A-10. So Boise it is for me.
Last night "Air Warriors" highlighted the A-10. If you get a chance watch, especially the part where a badly shot up A-10 without hydraulics was landed manually by a woman pilot. Only two A10s have ever tried to land manually and one didn't make it!
I was lucky enough to catch that show last night as well. A must see... again. O/T, the previous show on the V-22 was pretty awesome.
Delays in F-35 purchase and production extends the need for A-10s. License renewed? Air Force says it needs A-10 a bit longer, thanks | Ars Technica
The F-35 has significant issues that need to be resolved. How vulnerable is the F-35 on the deck to small arms (AAA) during daylight missions ? The Hog was built to take the 23mm and lose one of it's stabilizers.
I have often thought about the declage of the wing and horizontal stabilizer on that airplane. It appears that the wing has a thick section at the root and what looks like an NACA 4418 airfoil. I'm guessing that it produces a prodigious nose down pitching moment that requires some heavy tail down load as exhibited by the 3 to 41/2 Deg. negative incidence. A power off situation and loss of hydraulics would not be fun if you weren't quick and strong.I assume that the automatic manual reversion is by aerodynamic balance panels (like the 727) but the speeds would be pretty low for that kind of system to be working well. Any experts out there with Hog knowledge?
Bob, if I had the mental faculties like yours I'd give you the answer. My Hog maintenance (including flight control systems) ended back in 1985. Fond memories I still have, technical details, no so much.
Bob- The A-10 has redundant hydraulic systems, one powered by each engine. Designed for battle damage. The F-35 will not fly CAS like an A-10. Minimum altitude will be well above small arms effective altitude (normally around 4500'). PGMs like SDB and SDBII make it unnecessary to fly as low as the A-10 for effective use of the GAU-8. Same goes for the F-16 and F-15E. LGBs are also very effective against armor, with F-111s killing well over 1000 pieces of armor in Desert Storm with GBU-12s costing only $10K each. CEM is very effective against personnel and there are PGM equipped canisters for those, too. This is not 1975 defending the Gap from Soviet armor.
Thanks, Taz. I would like to know more about the A-10 because it is one of my favorite aircraft and I think that we should have a couple of hundred of them in the middle east AND use them. I simply cannot understand the lack of response to an obvious threat that the free world faces now. I keep going back to 1938 and Hitler (and Neville Chamberlin) and how we sat on our butts and let the Nazis run amuck. We need another French Foreign Legion on steroids.
Or a Winston Churchill - Neville Chamberlain was the definition of a pacifist, one can only imagine if the Brits would have survived the German onslaught had he been in charge.
There's also a psychological effect that the A-10 has on the enemy. Like a bird of prey it comes in, you can see it coming, and devastates and area. In order to defeat an enemy you have to demoralize them so that you eliminate the will to fight. If the truck near you gets blown up by a bomb the effect isn't nearly as demoralizing as seeing an entire area and a row of vehicles torn up by an A-10 run. The term "Whispering Death" is how the A-10 is described by the enemy in Iraq. When you have a system like that it's not just what it can do, but it's also about how the enemy perceives your capability. If you want to blow things up and break things, there's lots of ways to do it. If you want to kill soft targets and wipe out anything in a good sized area the A-10 is as good a way to do it as any.
While I love the A-10, it's like the battleships of yesteryear. Battleships had their era and were also used as "battleship diplomacy" after WW2, but their time came to pass. So it is with the Warthog. Sad. They'll get an immediate lifeline, but eventually, it will be killed by politicians. Sent by incredibly fast electrons
IMO, absolutely incorrect. While we may not need its' tank killing abilities to defend the Fulda Gap, it's (again, IMO) the perfect weapon for the sort of decentralized, small force engagements that will be a large part of our future warfare. Systems redundancy, titanium bathtub, massive firepower. Keep em around.
