What It Feels Like to Fly an A-10 Warthog | Hacker News Reader

What It Feels Like to Fly an A-10 Warthog

nationalinterest.org

34 pointsrfreytag70 comments

Pictures of A10's that made it back home despite heavy damage are interesting. The cockpit is surrounded by a titanium bathtub, so the pilot is fairly well protected, and there's a theme of armor in the right places and simplicity/redundancy all around.

This story is pretty interesting: https://www.military.com/air-force/air-force-pilot-landed-da...

I would rather fly a plane that doesn't get hit, the A-10 is obsolete.

I suspect it will be drones that eventually replace it, rather than another manned aircraft.

The F-16 was better at doing the kind of missions in Iraq that lead to the damage in your linked article.

I don't feel like the F-16 is particularly great for close air support. Fighters are better for the A-10's original role as a tank killer, but that hasn't really been its role for some time now.

Modern close air support means dropping smart bombs from high altitude, to do this you need to be able to quickly get to the right place, the A-10 is too slow to be able to do this. One of the most effective bomb trucks is the B-1B.

I don't believe that's accurate. From everything I've ever read about the A-10 and close air support, the 'close' aspect means that you're close enough to get positive visual identification of friend and foe. Additionally, it means slower speed because the fast movers are too fast for this task. The third important factor that's commonly mentioned is length of time that the plane can loiter on station to assist the ground troops.

A B-1B (while being highly impressive in its own capabilities) is poorly suited for these things.

Actually the B1-B has done a huge amount of the sorties for CAS. It can respond quickly, has a huge weapons load, and combined with targeting pods, can just sit above a fight plinking targets. It's loiter time is much better than 90% of the fighters over Afghanistan.

The idea of getting down in the weeds (below 1K AGL) is not how CAS is done anymore. It's extremely rare to get that close. It's not how the A-10 is typically used.

Have we outlawed inclement weather? Or just leave the gomers to their own devices until the cloud cover clears?

Inclement weather would obstruct the vision of the A-10 pilots too. Today's CAS is largely a forward observer calling in a grid/GPS coordinate or lasing a target.

how are pentagon planners dealing w/ emerging tech hacking/jamming/spoofing GPS signals? I recall something along this sort being posted to HN a few days back, as well as this being perhaps the means of how Iran captured a US drone several years ago...

GPS is problematic in a contested environment due to low signal strength. Even with GPSIII satellites being deployed, it's susceptible to both jamming and spoofing, at a trivial cost. Normally when an opponent starts emitting (say with a search radar), you can target it with HARM etc. But the GPS jammers are pretty cheap, and don't require much power to cause issues.

This has led to dual/tri mode seekers on missiles. They use GPS until they reach an area where the mission planners feel GPS would be unreliable, then they fail over to IR, radar, or EO sensors for the final segment of the mission. If weather permits (and the threat is manageable), you can lase the target. Potential workarounds in the future are vision matching systems (kind of like the ALCMs tercom) that appear promising.

Against a peer opponent, jamming will be pervasive across all frequencies. Your comms might be secure in terms of compromise, but the sheer amount of multi-band noise will be something that (at least the US) many militaries will be unprepared for.

I hope the B-1B is cheaper in terms of total cost to operate than in the Reagan era...I seem to recall chatter that it was something of a hangar queen

On what basis do you say that? The purpose of this plane is close in air support with the ability to hang around in the middle of a battle. All of the replacement jets can fly over drop some munitions and they fly off. If you are lucky they did the job, but if they missed or the target survived you have to call them back. The A10 comes in, chews everything you pointed out to rubble, asked you if they got it and if not they are still there and adjust and do it again. In a long running firefight in mountains and canyons the ability to point the finger of god at any random outcropping as needed over and over as you move down the path is priceless.

The A-10 can't fly at low level in the middle of a battle or it will be shot down by a SAM. They have been modified to be able to drop smart munitions from higher altitudes but are too slow to get to where they might be needed.

Quoting ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunde...

"From the beginning of 2006 to October 2013, A-10s conducted 19 percent of CAS missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than the F-15E Strike Eagle and B-1B Lancer, but less than the 33 percent flown by F-16s."

...and...

"The U.S. Army had expressed interest in obtaining some A-10s should the Air Force retire them"

I am not sure why SAMs aren't the threat to the A-10s that they were to Soviet helicopters in Afghanistan. Maybe the Taliban can't afford them? Also SAMs require training and degrade quickly if not maintained.

There's a couple of pages that are pretty comprehensive lists of aircraft lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both have tables near the bottom. If it's accurate, one A-10 was shot down by a SAM in Iraq, and that was the only A-10 combat loss across both conflicts.

Iraq: https://military.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_...

Afghanistan: https://military.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_Coalition_aircraft_l...

So many A-10s were damaged in Iraq that they were withdrawn from combat.

Can you cite your source?

https://military.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_... ... says only one A-10 was lost during the conflict.

I believe he's talking about damaged aircraft that made it home. The list I posted is aircraft that were literally shot down.

It's a little misleading, though it compliments the A-10.

The A-10 was designed knowing it was going to get shot at and take hits. It doesn't have the speed other craft do, though it was somewhat underestimated just how many hits it'd take. All of those redundancies and protections are designed to protect the pilot and save the aircraft. However, an A-10 doesn't have to be shot down in order to be considered a "mission loss", which is what would happen. A damaged aircraft is no longer mission effective, as the pilot is now focusing everything on keeping it airworthy and getting it back to base. So as one of the other posters indicated, while many wern't a total lost, many were damaged, and either had to abort or cut short their mission as a result. From a sortie effectiveness perspective, that's the same result as a downed plane. https://baloogancampaign.com/2015/02/02/10-future-us-close-a...

The SAMs used against the HIND in Afghanistan were Stingers that have smaller warheads. The Hind, while well armored compared to other helicopters, is much more vulnerable than the A-10. For example, an A-10 can lose an engine and still make it home. If a Hind loses a rotor, it's probably dead.

And the real issue is whether the A-10 can survive against a near peer like Russia or China. Considering that in the late 70's the life expectancy of an A-10 over the Fulda Gap was measured in single digit sorties, expecting them to survive today against modern SAMs (both radar guided and infrared) is unrealistic.

CAS in bush country like Iraq/Afghan is much better performed by fast jets that can respond quickly with a JDAM or SDB.

Ah, no. The idea that everyone has a MANPADS is just not true. A-10 spend tons of time on target in Afghanistan and Iraq. All of this is clearly documented.

I think parent commenter was citing how A-10s are only useful against enemies that can't fight back. I doubt anyone is thinking of fielding A-10s against the Chinese or putting them up against Russian S-400s

I believe the proper distinction is "can't shoot with heat-seeking missiles". It's true that A-10 would be easy kill for the missiles, but it has legendary durability against small arms fire.

The A-10 is not such an easy kill.

1. Take a good look at the tail in relation to the engines. From most angles, the engine exhaust is hidden from the ground. The A-10 is flown with an undulating motion that will break a heat-seeking lock.

2. The typical little missile just isn't going to do much damage. The A-10 is a twin-engine aircraft with some armor around the engines. There is even a bit of extra fuel kept there, in case the fuel line is cut.

The reason they are retiring the A-10 is that the airframe cannot be upgraded with the power systems needed to support modern defensive and offensive systems. Modern combat aircraft are giant electrical power systems with an aircraft wrapped around them. When the A-10 was designed half a century ago, this was not a requirement and there is no way to retrofit it.

Modern air defense systems are explicitly engineered to very effectively kill things like the A-10, and it can't support modern counter-measures because of these limitations. It still works in environments for which it was designed i.e. absent modern air defense systems.

From your comment it seems like the issue is around good customer service.

You want to see something, tell someone you don't like seeing that thing, have someone make it no longer there. Repeatedly over a period of time.

Whether that's an A-10 or a magician on a flying carpet doing that work, the work just needs to get done.

I wonder if a fleet of drones will do that work. You could have them peel off, refuel and come back as required automatically while maintaining a minimum strike force in the area.

Regardless, it has to Just Work TM.

Yes, to be honest you are on point. If it is a swarm of drones that can have the same effect sure. The point is today the only thing that can hang around are A-10s.

It has a glass cockpit, Link 16, sniper pod integration, and SDB integration is coming soon. That's more advanced that most countries air forces.

The only thing really obsolete unfortunately is the engines.

The engines are perfect for its mission. High efficiency which translates into long loiter times.

Agree. Spare parts are the issue.

Without googling I believe there is another aircraft in the Navy that uses the same engine but it's been retired? If I recall correctly as well it's used in some business jets.

S-3 Viking I believe.

I feel ya. The A-10 has so many fans (and for good reason), that it's nigh impossible for anyone to believe it's obsolete. But you're right, and you're perhaps being unfairly downvoted.

There's a great article here breaking this down: https://baloogancampaign.com/2015/02/02/10-future-us-close-a...

To summarize: - The A-10 was designed for an era when SAMs weren't as sophisticated as they are today. The GAU-8 cannon was to be an affordable weapon for eliminating tanks, but even as it was entering service it was soon clear that modern systems were outranging the cannon, and the Maverick soon became the primary anti-armor weapon of the A-10 due to it's standoff range. (source: colleague who was an A-10 test pilot (in the only two-seater made no less!) and links I can't find now)

- This proved true in Iraq (see link above) where the A-10 was getting shot up quite a bit against frontline units, and F-16s with their higher speed were sent in instead. It's a good reminder here that again, the cannon is no longer the primary weapon against armor in a high-threat environment. When that's taken into account, the A-10 and F-16 have similar weapons capabilities.

- The A-10s primary advantage in a low-threat environment is it's high endurance time. Here, it's being squeeze from two sides: Low-cost COIN aircraft like the A-29 Super Tucano, and high altitude bombers with targeting pods like the B-52. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw2qPzl1gtM). The A-29 is very effective in the counterinsurgency role for a fraction of the cost where it's not running against sophisticated AA systems. On the other end, you have the B-52, loitering at 35,000+ with an enormous load of munitions that can be called down on command and well above the range of man-portable systems.

- Check this video here of the late John McCain and a hearing with the Air Force. I've FFed the time to the general's answer to him. McCain, experienced as he was, is looking at this from a prior era here, and I think the General proves it. https://youtu.be/_up7IHd3LDs?t=218

The Air Force, feeling the budget squeeze, is rightfully concluding that the A-10 can go. They can perform the COIN/light ground attack role with much cheaper aircraft or by leveraging the huge advances in targeting with pods attached to the B-52, B-1, and F-15/F-16. At the high-threat end, they have the F-35, who's stealth, ECM, and sensors make it much more survivable than the A-10. (No, really. It does.)

And lastly, if anyone wants to see what this actually plays out like, try the A-10 simulator in DCS. It's a fantastic module. And then better yet, fly a mission or two on the public servers with the A-10 in a mixed threat environment. It'll be eyeopening.

And regarding those? I flew as part of a group online where we'd design and then fight realistic scenarios for our online wing. Props to our A-10 crews, but I got to see (simulated of course) just how limited these craft sometimes were. They were incredibly slow, and so took forever to get to the operational area, meaning the rest of our fighters had to either take off late, leaving them uncovered, or take off early and hit the tanker several times so that they'd be in the strike area to cover when they arrived. With a full load they were sitting ducks most of the time; jinking away from modern SAMs was practically impossible unless you were really sticking close to a ridgeline, which limited where you could go. Often the A-10s would get to the area after a long cruise, only to find some threats still up. They'd then have to loiter somewhere while an F/A-18 with HARMs came to clean up. We had a lot of aircraft overhead and around the A-10 to give it a role in the mission, whereas a package of 2-4 F-16s/F/A-18s with Mavericks could accomplish the same.

(Me? I flew the Viggen. We don't need no escorts, Swedish Dorito go "zoom".)

Anyways, hope this helps illustrate the issue for some of your detractors.

Excellent points.

But why then do the soldiers on the ground demand the A-10? They are in the field fighting and sometimes dying so from better food to fast Med-Evac what the soldier wants he/she gets to sustain their morale.

What is missing from the stand-off platforms or fast movers that the A-10 has and gains it loyal supporters? Is it that the soldier sees the pilot get into the conflict with them?

What was it like to fly the Viggen? Any posts on that aircraft you can recommend?

>But why then do the soldiers on the ground demand the A-10?

I think that's a much more difficult question to answer and probably a lot more subjective. Define "Demand"? Do they demand it over other platforms? And why? I don't have the answer to any of those, and I suspect that the extent that they demand or prefer the A-10 might be in part due to the fact that it just looks impressive. I think you might be onto something as well with regards to "seeing them in the conflict"; the A-10 is often regarded as "being down in the mud" with the troops, where as a JDAM drop from an F/A-18 or B-52 is going to be a angry fist out of nowhere. You can't bond with it, except maybe the soldier talking to it over the radio. =P

The Viggen (in DCS) is hella fun. It's very fast at low-level, and brings a different feel than any other warplane in in the sim. It's very much a product of it's time; with cutting edge electronics but from the 60s and 70s. It's also a very purpose-built craft too: The ideal Viggen mission is to plan a route to strike against a pre-planned target, dump it's warload in an instant, and get out. The electronics are rather janky and will remind you of an Apollo-era computer, but again, they were cutting edge for the time, and it's remarkable how effective they are still. In DCS the Viggen will teach you good planning and tactics as your weapons and sensors are relatively primitive. But it's navigation is excellent, it's speed and handling at low-level are supurb, and it automates in all of the right places so that you can focus more on your surroundings.

In DCS I flew it in those same large scale missions along A-10s. We had rudimentary ECM and chaff/flares to keep us alive. But it was really our speed that did so. You pop up close to the target, using the ground to mask you all the way in, keeping your speed as high as possible (this is where good planning helps) and then egressing out, preferably back under cover (again, planning!) Done well, we'd be long gone before a SAM could respond, let alone close the distance. It didn't always work though, and against targets that were much more in the open, we didn't do so well. And that's pushing mach .9, or 600+ KIAS. So you can see how an A-10 bumbling along at 200-300 is having a rougher go of it.

I'd check out this great video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpFIHZJbTtY Also search the /r/hoggit discussions over on Reddit. Viggen has a small but loyal following. It's not a good all-rounder, but it does certain things very well, and with style. =D

Also, check out any of the "F-111 w/ Jeff Guinn videos" over on Aircrew Interview, and how they handled SAMs and how "high speed/low level" was a very difficult problem for air defense to solve back then. Different plane, but very similar mission set. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAyMklJSwi8

It would probably be the loiter. Sure you can order in something and it gets dropped. Then the fighter returns to base. The A-10 affords flexibility to those units that are doing counterinsurgency against people that will attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack. So you can probably use the A-10 repeatedly as you track down where the "enemy" is.

Plus, maybe you didn't get the first sighting correct, or once the JDAM hits a bunch of others scurry and you want more.

You're actually correct. Against modern air defenses the A-10 would have a very difficult if not impossible mission.

Luckily we don't fight wars against superpowers and if we do the A-10 won't be the first one in.

And as cool as that gun is- it's overrated. Pilots shouldn't have to free-gun. Most of the footage of these guns show them missing a lot.

Well the original plan would have put it as the first one in against a peer adversary [0]. The rate of attrition against '70s/'80s vintage air defence would have been horrific, can you imagine what it would be like now?

[0] https://medium.com/war-is-boring/an-a-10-pilot-could-hope-to...

I struggle with duality around this. I loved the plane growing up, but at this point in my life I can't hear "the gun is f'n awesome when you fire it" without thinking about the lives it's ending doing so.

Unfortunately the US fetishness about the A-10 gun (esp when Maverick and others were much more effective) also likely caused significant long lasting cancerous effects in the areas it was used because of the depleted Uranium.

I'd like to see the sources for this.

There was a lot of focus on DU at times, especially with regards to Gulf War Syndrome (perhaps because of the "uranium" being in the name) but I believe most of the focus has now shifted elsewhere, particularly with regards to the anti-chemical and anti-biological mixes soldiers were given in the run up to the invasion. I can't find many of the articles I've read on this over the years, but Wikipedia has a decent summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome#Causes

The thing with DU and what ended up ruling it out as much of an exposure factor is that it is extremely heavy. Particulates of it don't travel far. They sink, fall short, etc. They don't waft around in air or get suspended in water like some compounds do. I don't think anyone would suggest that you ingest the stuff, but from what I'd read, the extreme weight of the stuff kept it localized and unlikely to be ingested or exposed to in any amounts that would cause wide issues.

That there were other factors that could cause these effects I don't dispute. But it was my understanding that it was determined that it was concluded DU wasn't one of them.

Environmental pollution by depleted uranium in Iraq with special reference to Mosul and possible effects on cancer and birth defect rates. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130521105557.h...

Thanks for this!

I grew up with A-10s flying overhead almost daily (I lived next to BDL airport and the CT Air National Guard had A-10s). I had pictures of all kinds of different planes on my wall and wanted to be a fighter pilot - as did half the boys in the Top Gun generation. Much later my wife's cousin in the British Army was shot by an American F-18 in Afghanistan on a close air support mission. I clicked on this article because of my old fondness for A-10s but you're absolutely right, it's easy to become fascinated by the technology and separate yourself from the reality that these things are purpose built to kill other humans.

If history shows anything, it is that is absolutely sucks to be on the losing side of a military conflict.

As an American, I am happy that the US develops and fields weapons, including A-10's, that help win conflicts.

War always sucks. There is always suffering and innocent lives lost. This is better solved by limiting what wars we engage in, than in feeling bad about our warfighting equipment.

Except when you build such a large war industry that stopping the wars isn't really an option, which is where we are now.

My point has nothing to do with the equipment. It's the cultural celebration of warfare and the white washing of the true horrible nature of war. "This gun is f'n awesome" is but a symptom of the true problem.

I'm not ignorant to human nature and our inherent trend towards conflict, I'm just somewhat sad that our culture in particular throws the metaphorical gas on the flame.

I feel like you're missing the forest for the trees. We love all kinds of things of a technical nature. Trains, skyscrapers, bulldozers, rockets, tanks, guns, etc. I love driving a tank in video games and I love watching movies about tanks, but that doesn't mean I condone their use in real-world warfare unless absolutely necessary.

Well, are you concerned about any lives, or just lives of the innocent? This plane has killed a lot of terrorists and insurgents, but probably has a pretty good track record of not killing the innocent, since it is almost always used for close air support during an active battle.

Might be worth mentioning there's DCS (https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/products/warthog/), a highly realistic simulator that includes A-10C.

I'm not into airplanes much, but I've long been fascinated by the engineering awesomeness of the A-10 plane. There's tons of videos online that show many aspects of it.

I'd love to have an opportunity to fly one, even though I don't know how to fly planes :(

What appeals to me about the A-10 is that it is 'focused' design. It is designed around a single use case (around a single weapon really), and everything is to that single end. This makes it incredibly good at that single job, and as long as that purpose still exists (and close air support is likely to continue to be needed) the A-10 will continue to be in demand.

I too would love to fly one and I'm not a pilot of any kind! Not only aren't civilians permitted (to the best of my knowledge) to fly military aircraft, there are no 2-seater A-10s. This means that your first time flying it, you're doing it solo.

This is more to draw attention to an unusual fact than any desire to "correct" you, but a single two-seater was built: http://www.airvectors.net/ava10_1.html#m7

It was a single prototype. One of my minor claims to fame in life is that I worked with a guy who was a test pilot, and actually flew in this aircraft.

Of course, your larger point stands however, and general there's no "type conversion" craft like you see in other two-seaters for this purpose. That said, if you had a solid flight background in other types of aircraft, it'd be unlikely that you'd have issues in the A-10. It's reportedly an easy craft to fly, there's little peculiarities that would give a pilot issues like you see in some high-performance craft. Straight wing, low landing speed, no built-in aerodynamic instabilities or anything like that.

Awesome! Thanks for the correction! I think it would still be a true statement to say that 99.9% of A-10 pilots have their first flight in a one-seater flying solo.

If you'd like to read a true story about A-10s providing close air support to save a group of Marines, I recommend the following article:

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-two-a-10-pilots-saved-...

It’s more of a flying-high-caliber-machine-gun than a plane if we’re being honest

A good picture to help visualize that: https://i.insider.com/579a52aa88e4a79f178bb61a?width=1200&fo...

That's incredible. I can never look at the A-10 the same way again.

I love airplanes and certainly would jump on the opportunity to fly a military jet. What I cannot understand however is how people - lots of them Christians - can get so excited about firing a huge gun at other people...

I imagine that decades of brainwashing in the military can change a lot of views

That has got to be one of the most horrifically ad-heavy pages I have looked at in a long time.

When I read this I thought "funny, I didn't notice any ads at all". So I reloaded it and checked the protections dashboard (using Firefox with Enhanced Protection turned on): 52,449 blocked! WTF?

I'm sure this will be buried etc, but just something to pass on. I spend a lot of time in small planes doing aerial surveying work with equipment I make. The pilot i've flown with the most spent his whole career flying and training others to fly A-10s. We had so much time (100's of hours) just sitting in a cessna together I got to ask tons of questions and hear lots of stories.

One of my favourites was just peacetime stuff when they flew non-stop from their base in Germany back to the US, refueling on the way. Just think about that - you're a pilot used to doing close air support short missions and now you're off on what in only a few decades before would have been an adventure on the scale of the great explorers.

He would regularily comment on how good the missile launch system is... essentially it chose the right time to launch based on the pitch/speed/location etc of the plane. He mentioned it enough times it must have been pretty special.

When I asked him if it was difficult to fly, he said that other jets he flew were more difficult (flame outs etc), but it also wasn't easy.

In 30 years flying them the only missile he ever launched (or maybe only missile of a certain type... not sure), was for training and cost $1m+. Everyone at some point in their training got to fire one at a dummy tank. He said the accuracy was amazing... he hit it bang on - mostly due to the targetting tech he was praising rather than his skill. He did mention that the $1m price tag was misleading because they expire and use missiles which if not used would be scrapped anyway. Or something close to that - this was 4-5 years ago my memory is a little hazy.

And the gun. Well... this guy is a republican voter (which was always funny as I'm way left of Sanders), with a heart of gold but had some interesting theories about the best use of the A10 related to Trumps border wall. He said they do so much shooting out in the desert, they could just relocate all their practice along the border with mexico, not spend anything extra than they are now and no one would dare go near it. I'm not sure how much of that was in jest or how serious he was. Thats abhorrent to me but all good we all get to have our views.

He has a model of an A10 on his desk which was gifted to him when he stopped flying them, and a big picture of himself climbing into one on the wall back when he was lean and handsome and hadn't put on his old-timer weight. My first flight simulator was A-10 on the Commodore 64, and it literally set the path to me ending up working with him.... my interest in aviation, cameras, computers etc. So both that photo and the model on his desk felt really special to me in a way that I can't really explain.

And of course being a nieve computer guy, I had to ask 'the question'. Did he knowingly kill anyone. He didn't answer.

I imagine the feeling varies based on how many brown lives you end with each pass.

Using anti armor rounds on people does feel brutal. Here's the size of the ammo in the main gun: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/77/6e/43/776e4327ed11dddd0428...

When we were kids, my brother bought a spent 30 mm GAU-8A bullet and kept it around on his desk. Were all of the rounds depleted uranium? We knew it could be DU, but didn't have a scintillation counter, and didn't bother to measure its density. He just kept it far from his bed and his food.

I know solid uranium metal isn't so bad, and armor piercing shells typically have a tungsten or DU core covered with lead (if nothing else, to keep the super hard core from abrading the barrel).

It must have been solid lead, or lead jacketed tungsten, right? My brother has 4 perfectly healthy kids, but I could imagine some kid keeping a DU shell in his/her pocket, in close proximity to their gametes for years.

No, likely an inert steel round used in training

And how much meth ("go pills") you were on.

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