For you A-10 fans...

[Grendels]

Texas A&M University is very near and since it is something of a military school, every football game has a flyover. Yesterday it was a squad of A-10's. They decided to do a public exhibition and I took a lot of photos:

 

[Grendels]

Even more photos:

 

[Grendels]

And more:

 

[Grendels]

And more, can you tell I got to crawl all over this plane?

 

[Grendels]

I got to go up and look in the cockpit:



And I want to thank a very patient Wife and Daughter while this A-10 junkie crawled all over that plane.

 

[hooterville75]

Good stuff, Grendels. ;D

 

[Ferris928]

7 Barrels of '..Oh no, you didn't!"

Thanks Grendals!!!

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Lots of great reference pictures.

Time for you to build one now! LOL

 

[Dusky]

Wow! Lots of great photos!

 

[Neo]

and there i was gona go buy ReidAir publications A-10 book!

good stuff

too bad there was no amo in the gun!

 

[Grendels]

There was, in one of the photos, you can just see the tip of the shell sticking out. Here it is:



I took these photos with model building reference in mind.

 

[Carsenault]

Wow, great walkaround pics... Will be saving these and adding one Hobby Boss kit to my wish list!

 

[spud]

Wow John those are Great

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

There was, in one of the photos, you can just see the tip of the shell sticking out. Here it is:



I took these photos with model building reference in mind.

I think what you are seeing is light reflecting off of the ammo chutes, if they brought this out for the public to see and crawl all over, they wouldn't be allowed to have it armed...even with dummy rounds. And besides, if there was ammo in the chute at the very top....it would also run down through the very bottom as well as it is the same chute

 

[trocasan]

fantastic! one of the best. thank you for the great photos.

 

[Grendels]

There was, in one of the photos, you can just see the tip of the shell sticking out. Here it is:



I took these photos with model building reference in mind.

I think what you are seeing is light reflecting off of the ammo chutes, if they brought this out for the public to see and crawl all over, they wouldn't be allowed to have it armed...even with dummy rounds. And besides, if there was ammo in the chute at the very top....it would also run down through the very bottom as well as it is the same chute

I had a long talk with one of the pilots while waiting in line for the cockpit tour. The input chute and output chute are connected. The rounds feed from the top and cycle through to the bottom as they pass through the gun. I didn't take a good photo of this part showing the spent shells in the chute but they were there. The spent shells are stored internally in the rear of the plane.

I also did not take a good photo of the top of the gun, but when I looked up there, they had a lot of shells in the queue waiting to enter the gun. I didn't think that those were dummy rounds. They didn't have the look of it and why load dummy rounds with spent shells in the output chute? The pilot later gave a Gun tour and I tried to record it. I will check it tomorrow and if the recording came out good, I will post it. I didn't follow along very well, I didn't want to lose my spot in line for the cockpit.

That silver spike in the photo is a shell in the queue. It was the only photo I took that showed one.

 

[Holden]

And to think the Air Force was going to mothball them before the first gulf war. I'm really glad they didn't, hopefully they will be flying for awhile yet.

 

[Grendels]

The pilot told me that the plan was to moth ball them when the next gen of fighters comes into service. And that the special purpose planes were to be decommissioned. He also remarked that a lot of commanding generals will not be happy when that occurs.

That is not new to this plane, how many times have they tried to decommission it?



Take a look at this photo, the black streaking on the side of the plane is from the gas discharge of the main gun.

 

[Gundamhead]

To be replaced by a turbo prop. As big a crime as letting the F-14 die. There will simply never be one as good at what it does.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

They just upgraded these with the Lantern systems, so I doubt they will be retiring them anytime soon after spending the money to upgrade them, but stranger things have happened.

Before the first Gulf War the brass figured the F-16 could do the same job as the A-10, and the A-10s were selected to be mothballed. Along came the war and they were found to be invaluable, and thus upgraded over the next 10yrs. I don't see the F-35 being any better at doing the job of the A-10 then the F-16 was.

As good as the A-10A was, the upgraded A-10Cs are king of the battlefield, this is just one of those aircraft, much like the B-52, that something better has never come along, nor is anything even on the drawing board better to replace it.