a10 warthogs Damaged Heavily in Gulf War Bug Survived to Fly Again
Everybody knows the A-ten tin bring the pain to footing targets like few aircraft in history, but the aircraft'south tight plough radius and powerful gun can actually make it a force to be reckoned with in a dogfight as well.
The A-10 Thunderbolt Ii, more commonly known every bit the Warthog, is a legendary air support platform that has earned its reputation every bit the infantryman's favorite aircraft throughout decades of combat operations… but the Air Strength knows that a near-peer fight against an enemy with real airpower volition mean there's a chance A-10s may find themselves stuck in some fights they aren't supposed to win. That's why the Air Force Weapons School starts its A-10 curriculum with Basic Fighter Maneuvers.
While Bones Fighter Maneuvers are ordinarily abbreviated in the aviation world to simply "BFM," those of us who earn a living exterior the cockpit call this kind of gainsay something different: a dogfight.
The A-x was not built to dogfight
The A-10 was purpose-congenital to fill a capability gap in America'south airpower arsenal that had cypher to do with engaging enemy airplanes. Later decades of focus on building faster, college-flying fighters and bombers for a potential nuclear war with the Soviet Union, America found itself with no shipping that were ho-hum-moving, depression flying, and resilient enough to be actually constructive at Close Air Support (CAS) in Vietnam. The Air Force's jets merely couldn't fly slowly enough to spot targets in dumbo jungle, didn't take the fuel to make multiple passes, and weren't resilient enough to absorb much in the fashion of enemy gunfire.
And that'southward where Fairchild Republic came in with a design for an unusual aircraft that prized resiliency, redundancy, and function over all else. Information technology was nearly as long as it was wide, and the fuselage was lilliputian more than a massive 30mm rotary cannon with a cockpit stuck on top. Ii General Electric TF34-GE-100A turbofans engines were mounted high on the fuselage to protect them from sucking in dirt and debris on austere airstrips near the fight, and internally, redundant hydraulic systems and a titanium armor "tub" shielded the pilot and control systems from small arms burn down.
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The result was a jet with practically unparalleled toughness, the ability to unleash three,900 depleted uranium 30mm rounds at a target per minute, and a turn radius that would make any modern fighter chroma. All that comes at a cost, however. The A-x is a big jet without big power. A-ten pilots often joke that it really only has 3 settings: off, taxiing, and max power. Pilots from other aircraft can be even crueler, often kidding that the A-10 is so slow that it runs the constant adventure of bird strikes… from backside.
Even the virtually modern A-10C, with updated cockpits and the power to comport and leverage more munitions than ever, aren't particularly well suited for a fight with almost fighters in service today. It just wasn't congenital for it… but with America pivoting back toward great power contest and the A-10 slated to remain in service until the 2040s, this CAS champ is in one case again facing the possibility of having to foursquare off with jets that were built specifically to hunt down and impale planes that can move a lot quicker than the Warthog does.
A-10 pilots larn how to leverage the plane's unique skills in a dogfight
Nigh operational A-10 pilots don't put much idea into dogfights. While nosotros tend to think of combat aircraft in the individual sense, America leverages them as pieces of a broad combat strategy. In other words, the U.S. plans its operations around leaning into the strengths of different platforms and avoiding their weaknesses. Every bit such, A-10s oft operate in concert with air superiority fighters similar the legendary F-xv Eagle, who are responsible for engaging enemy fighters before they have a run a risk to square off with any irksome-moving Warthogs.
But equally famed writer and former F-14 Radar Intercept Officer Ward Carroll pointed out in our discussion almost speed versus stealth in 21st-century dogfighting, big wars confronting developed nations go messy. And in that mess lies the e'er-present chance that things aren't going to go exactly as planned. With dozens or even hundreds of aircraft in a fight, it'south entirely possible that a few enemy fighters might make their way past an A-10's air superiority teammates. If that were to happen, the depression-and-slow Warthog would certainly have its easily full… only that's not to say that it wouldn't stand a chance.
Twice each year, the Air Force sends its best A-10 pilots to Weapons School, where they acquire advanced tactics they tin can bring back to their respective wings to teach the remainder of the force. While you might think A-x pilots would leap straight into delivering firepower to ground targets, they actually first with BFM.
"BFM is a mission set that A-x guys hopefully never accept to use, because the theory is that you're doing it in cocky-defence force. The F-15s, or other Defensive Counter Air jets, should be on top of us, keeping all that stuff out of our way," Retired Colonel Denny "Gator" Yount told The War Zone in an splendid feature published earlier this year.
"But if you become a 'leaker' [an enemy fighter that gets past the DCA] you need to train how to survive with the 2 AIM-9M Sidewinders and the ECM [AN/ALQ-131 electronic countermeasures] pod. These are the just things that stay on the aeroplane if yous striking the big blood-red push button to dial off the stores."
If a "leaker," or enemy fighter, does manage to get through, they'll be in for a surprise. As American fighter pilots learned firsthand over Vietnam, being slow and maneuverable can work out in a gunfight against fast-moving jets. While the A-10 can't outrun a fighter, it can outturn them.
"Most pilots of other types didn't really sympathize our strengths until they had fought us a few times. Regardless of their turn rate, the all-time turn radius will get the get-go shot opportunity. At the corner, our turn radius was about 1,700 anxiety, and when I'm almost dead out of energy information technology's nearly 2,100 feet — that's not very big at all," Yount explained.
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The only fighter in Uncle Sam's arsenal that could compete with that is the thrust-vectoring F-22 Raptor, and it would have to tedious down to around 300 knots to do it, eliminating its speed reward against the A-10 (though the F-22 could put a lot more power down when compensating). Think, dogfights don't have to play out over full minutes like we come across in the movies. In fact, if things go well for i airplane pilot (or actually poorly for the other) a dogfight might concluding exactly how long information technology takes the two jets to complete a single loop after the merge (where they meet head-on).
Put merely, the A-10's tight turn radius allows it to orient its nose at the enemy fighter faster than the enemy tin can get its guns pointed back at the A-10. To make matters worse for the fighter, the incredibly powerful 30mm GAU-eight the A-10 is packing can shoot an shipping down from far further than the 20mm cannons commonly found on other fighters.
"And so, even if they can out rate me, my gun tin can cross their olfactory organ before they can come around," Yount explained.
"They accept to respect that gun — which means they have to jink out of the way, which in plough presents some opportunities. If y'all put an A-10 in that close turning fight, we do very,very, well."
A-10s carry ii AIM-9M Sidewinders just in case a dogfight breaks out
As powerful as the GAU-8 is, the Warthog has other tools to help it win a fight with an opposing jet. In case of a dogfight, the A-10 as well carries a pair of AIM-9M sidewinder missiles. AIM-9s are infrared-guided weapons with a range of 22 miles, giving the Warthog the punch it needs to engage an enemy fighter at a altitude.
The combination of the A-10'due south tight turn radius and AIM-9s makes for a frightening 1-two punch for aggressive enemy fighters. If an enemy jet finds itself in close quarters with an A-x, its left to choose between two difficult options: You can try to out-plow the A-10 and fire your weapons earlier information technology can, or you can turn tail and run from the BRRRT. The problem is, if you turn and run, you're flight right into the estrus-seeking Sidewinder's trap.
"If they get into the turning fight with us they deplete a lot of free energy," explained Yount. "Then they desire to bug out, light the afterburning and go away — just all that does is make my AIM-9 lock-on alarm scream louder!"
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A-10s scored two Air-to-Air kills against helicopters in Desert Storm
While no A-10 pilot has managed to shoot down an enemy fighter in combat, the platform does have a few notches in its chugalug for downing enemy shipping. During the Persian Gulf War, A-10s found renewed life after more than a decade of stagnating nether its counter-Soviet role. In just forty days (the extent of the Persian Gulf War), the A-10 racked up an astonishing 987 kills against enemy tanks, 926 against enemy artillery pieces, ane,355 against other combat vehicles, 10 confronting enemy fighters on the ground, and 2 confronting airborne enemy helicopters.
The showtime of those shoot-downs can be credited to Air Force Capt. Bob Young man, who managed the kill in perfect Warthog grade, using the GAU-8 Avenger, rather than his Sidewinder missiles.
"I noticed two black dots running across the desert that looked actually different than anything I had seen before," Beau explained in 1991 "They weren't putting up whatever grit and they were moving fast and chop-chop over the desert."
As Swain realized the black dots were indeed helicopters, i peeled off to the North and got away. The other headed southward with Fellow following behind. Because of the low altitude the two were flying at, Fellow couldn't get a lock on the helicopter with his AIM-9M, so he switched the shipping back out of air-to-air style and lined the MI-viii upwardly in the "funnel" displayed in the A-10'due south heads upward display. Under normal circumstances, the HUD funnel shows an A-10 pilot where his bullets will likely track, though it gets more complicated in a dogfight.
"I started firing almost a mile away," Swain said. "Some of the bullets ran through him, but we weren't sure if it was stopped completely. So I came back with the last pass, hitting information technology and information technology fell autonomously."
"On the final pass, I shot about 300 bullets at him. That'south a pretty skillful burst. On the first laissez passer, peradventure 75 rounds. The second pass, I put enough bullets down, information technology looked like I hitting with a bomb."
Ultimately, the A-10 Thunderbolt II was built to do a chore that had cypher to practice with winning a dogfight, but the Warthog has been defying expectations since its very inception; finding new purpose after the fall of the Soviet Marriage, surviving retirement again and once again, and most impressive of all, returning safely after being positively riddled with holes from enemy fire. It seems only fitting that it would defy expectations still again in the realm of air-to-air combat.
Because winning a fight isn't ever near who has the fastest jet or the near powerful missiles. Sometimes it might come downwards to nothing more one tight loop and a veritable light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation-axle of depleted uranium 30mm rounds.
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