A-10 Thunderbolt II

Fairchild Republic · United States · first flew 1972 · fighter

A heavily armoured single-seat close air support aircraft built around its enormous GAU-8 Avenger cannon, famed for its survivability and ability to loiter low over the battlefield.

Recognition (WEFT)

W — WingsLow-mounted, straight
E — Engines2 × turbofan, fuselage-mounted
F — FuselageTwo large turbofan engines podded high on the rear fuselage
T — TailTwin fin

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Unmistakable for its two fat turbofans mounted high on the rear fuselage and the twin fins behind them. The straight, broad wing has gently upturned tips, and the long barrel of the nose cannon projects ahead of the bubble cockpit.

Specifications

Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.

History

The A-10 emerged from the US Air Force's A-X programme for a dedicated tank-busting attack aircraft, and the prototype first flew on 10 May 1972. Affectionately nicknamed the Warthog, it entered service in 1977 and has repeatedly survived attempts to retire it thanks to its battlefield value.

Variants

The original single-seat A-10A was joined by a small number of two-seat night/adverse-weather trainers, while the OA-10A served in the forward air control role. Surviving aircraft were upgraded to A-10C standard with precision weapons, modern cockpit displays and targeting pods.

Where you'll see it

The A-10 has never been an RAF type, but it has long operated from British soil with the US Air Force, most notably the 81st Fighter Wing flying Warthogs from RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge during the Cold War. A-10s remain welcome visitors to British airshows, regularly appearing at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford.

In depth

The Warthog is one of the few combat aircraft designed quite literally from the gun outward. Fairchild Republic began with the GAU-8 Avenger, a seven-barrel rotary cannon the size of a small car that spits depleted-uranium rounds at the rate of thousands per minute, and then built an aeroplane around it. That single decision explains much of the odd layout. The gun had to fire along the aircraft's centreline to avoid yawing it off aim, so the barrels are offset slightly to the left with the firing barrel positioned dead centre, and the nosewheel is shifted off to one side to make room. When the cannon fires, the recoil is roughly equivalent to the thrust of one of the engines, and the muzzle gases are so voluminous that ingesting them can flame out a jet, which is part of why the engines sit high and far back on the rear fuselage, out of the gun-gas plume and shielded from ground fire by the wing and airframe.

Survivability drove the rest of the shape. The pilot sits inside a bathtub of titanium armour thick enough to defeat cannon fire, and the flight controls are redundant to the point that a pilot can fly on manual cables if the hydraulics are shot away. The twin fins are positioned to mask the hot engine exhausts from heat-seeking missiles approaching from the side and rear, and to give some control authority even if one fin or one engine is lost. Photographs from the 1991 Gulf War of Warthogs limping home with hydraulics gone, half a wing shredded or an engine destroyed became the aircraft's calling card; Captain Kim Campbell famously nursed a battle-damaged A-10 back over Baghdad in 2003 flying on the manual reversion system after losing all hydraulics to ground fire.

That Gulf War was the type's vindication after years of the Air Force trying to cancel it. Warthogs destroyed large numbers of Iraqi tanks, vehicles and artillery pieces, and even scored air-to-air kills against helicopters with the cannon. In the years since it has loitered over Afghanistan and Iraq providing close air support to troops in contact, its slow speed and long endurance, the very qualities that make it look ungainly, proving exactly what soldiers on the ground want overhead. The aircraft's persistent rival has been not another platform but the institutional preference for fast, multi-role fighters, and repeated attempts to replace its mission with the F-16, F-35 or drones have run into the stubborn fact that nothing else does the job quite the same way.

For the British spotter the A-10 carries real local history. Throughout the Cold War the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing flew Warthogs from the twin bases of RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, dispersing to forward operating locations across West Germany, and for a generation of East Anglian plane-watchers the low grey shape of a Hog beating across the fields was an everyday sight. Those wings have long gone, but the type still crosses the Atlantic for exercises and shows, and it has been a regular and much-loved performer at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, where its tight, low display and the unmistakable sound of the gun on a firing pass never fail to draw a crowd. A hard-won recognition tip: in the air the A-10 is often given away by its silhouette from below, a broad slab wing with the two engine nacelles standing proud on the rear like a pair of ears, and by its habit of flying slow and low where a fast jet would never linger. Listen for the gun too, because the Avenger's brief, flatulent roar arrives a beat after you see the smoke, and once heard it is never mistaken for anything else.

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