OT- no matter how many times

[jeansy]

no matter how many times i see this pic im still amazed of the size of this thing

i can see why the aircraft was built around the gun

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/759/att01072.jpg

[MHAircraft]

The sister of a friend of mine was in the GAU-8 R&D Team. Everyone was amused that, while Mommy worked on the most powerful gun in an airplane, her kids weren't allowed to play with toy guns at all.

[Meshman]

I'd just like to strap the gun on top of the Beetle and fire it once, maybe twice if the Beetle survived the first shot... :jump:

[Victory103]

Agree, awesome aircraft and will be missed. I have a dummy "coke bottle" round on my desk at home.

[kilo delta]

The A10 units will withdraw from Europe next year sadly.

[rdaniell]

It was just announce a couple days ago on my local news that the A-10 East Demo Team located at Moody AFB, Georgia, will no longer be performing.
And get this....The Blue Angles will be performing this year at Moody's Open House. Now don't anybody jump on me but I just thought that was too much.
A Navy demo team at an Air Force base. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the Thunderbirds schedule has been reduced quite a bit.

RD

[Crusader]

The A10 units will withdraw from Europe next year sadly.

This is sad . I have thought that the A10 would always have a place in our military . A prime example is the B-52 . I realize it has been retrofitted many times but it has specific missions still very viable in today's military . I look at the A-10 in a similar way . Yes , I know , It's a lot slower in today's high tech-super electronics world but IMO it is still one hell of a close air support and attack aircraft . :medals: An obvious victim of our crappy economy and eventually fell into the "money crunch" .

Rich:salute:

[stansdds]

History is repeating a mistake, in my opinion.

After WW II, the newly formed USAF wanted a fast, sleek, and sexy image for its inventory. P-47's that served so well in A/A and A/G ops were scrapped or quickly relegated to Air National Guard units as fast as possible in favor of the P-51D and P-51H. Then a little conflict broke out on the Korean peninsula and the USAF found that the P-51 with it's liquid cooled engine and belly mounted radiator could be quickly taken out of action by ground fire during A/G and CAS ops. Thus came the Skyraider, a superb A/G attack aircraft and built to absorb ground fire. The Skyraider combined the survivability of the P-47 with the load carrying capability of the B-17 and served well through the early 1970's.

Then a new generation of jets came to the design table and the Skyraider's days were numbered. The F-15 and F-16 were really fast, really sleek, and sexy as hell, but had complicated systems and proved to be ill suited for CAS. Then there was the A-10, an aircraft built for survivability and utilized relatively simple systems. The A-10 proved to be as valuable as the P-47 and Skyraider, if not more so, in the conflicts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Now, the USAF wants the F-35 and wants it in quantity and wants it bad. The F-35 is new, it's really fast, it's really sleek, it's sexy, and they claim it can carry more than the A-10 and will work in A/A, A/G, and CAS. So the USAF is canceling airshow performances and sending the A-10 to the scrap heap so they can pay for the F-35 program. Does anyone really believe the F-35 and all of its complicated systems is going to fare well in CAS ops when faced with ground fire?

Mind you, this is just my two cents, so take it for what it's worth.

[JIMJAM]

The sister of a friend of mine was in the GAU-8 R&D Team. Everyone was amused that, while Mommy worked on the most powerful gun in an airplane, her kids weren't allowed to play with toy guns at all.


Although I love the plane and use to see them everyday, sickness follows that plane around so getting rid of that DU spitter might not be such a bad idea.

But on a happy note:mixedsmi: My caption for that pic would have been.... " Downsizing sucks but this is crazy." We got plenty of Chevy Volts but I guess the range would have been 50 miles and after the Gov "militarized" the car, it would have ended up costing more than the 300 million.

[Naruto-kun]

"Oh I wish I had a gun just like the A-10!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335GdTqtyLs