A-10 gear fairing

On 24 Sep 2003 08:29:47 -0700, (Kirk Stant)
wrote:

One hears (and reads about) the supposed dislike of the A-10 by the
"Air Force". I wonder where it all started - I never heard anyone
badmouth the Hog during my 20 years in, and everybody who flew it
loved it. The bull**** about "the brass hates it because it isn't
supersonic" is really an insult to the professionalism of the Air
Force. Anyway, the AF wanted the A-10 to get a big piece of stopping
the WP in the Fulda Gap, as well as do CAS (which has always been an
AF mission). In no way was it "forced" on the AF. Now, as a single

Kirk, you must read Campbell's book The Warthog and the Close Air
Support Support, from Naval Institute Press. He was an A-10 pilot (and
A-7s for the Navy before that!) and he certainly lays out the case
that only the power of the U.S. Congress forced the A-10 down the
throat of the Air Force brass, and that the brass spent the next 20
years trying to get rid of it.

Even the supersonic b.s. seems to be pretty well established--thus the
F-16 as the "successor" to the A-10. (The F-16's main virtue as a CAS
aircraft seems to be that it can fly supersonic if it's not carrying
any CAS stores

Of course the pilots loved it. It's a great plane.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...f=nosim/annals

Not my arguments! Campbell's.



all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 04:42:55 -0400, Cub Driver
wrote:

Even the supersonic b.s. seems to be pretty well established--thus the
F-16 as the "successor" to the A-10. (The F-16's main virtue as a CAS
aircraft seems to be that it can fly supersonic if it's not carrying
any CAS stores

The F-16 is only a "successor" to the A-10 by default. The aircraft
was purchased as a successor to the F-4 for the ground attack mission.
The A-10 was purchased nearly simultaneously.

The F-16 is multi-mission capable, the Hog is single task. Which is
more economical in a shrinking budget environment?

There's really no such thing as a "CAS store"--a bomb is a bomb. You
could call the gun a CAS weapon and the Viper is very supersonic with
gun only. You could hang a Mk-80 series low-drag bomb on a pylon and
haul it supersonic (you'd probably damage the fins and tail cone, but
you could go fast.) The point is that while supersonic is an
interesting capability, it has little tactical application except for
maybe an interceptor getting to point of engagement quickly. The
advantage comes in the acceleration and g-sustainability at actual
operating speed.

Cub Driver wrote in message news).

Kirk, you must read Campbell's book The Warthog and the Close Air
Support Support, from Naval Institute Press. He was an A-10 pilot (and
A-7s for the Navy before that!) and he certainly lays out the case
that only the power of the U.S. Congress forced the A-10 down the
throat of the Air Force brass, and that the brass spent the next 20
years trying to get rid of it.

I'll have to get his book and read it. However, that position is not
reflected in the actual operational use of the A-10, which has been in
the limelight of every conflict we have faught since we got it - not a
good way to make a plane look bad! There was also a lot of opposition
to the F-4, and to the F-16, and even to the F-111 when they were all
introduced, but they all turned out to be excellent weapons. I think
only the F-15 had no opponents from the start! And we go back to the
problem of single role aircraft - when you are cutting back, they are
the first to go, regardless of how good they are. Once the military
started getting funds again, the A-10 started getting a bunch of
excellent upgrades (LASTE,Aim-9 rails, etc.), and now they have
finally added a decent targeting pod - not something you do to a
"despised" weapon system. If only they would put some new motors on
it...

Even the supersonic b.s. seems to be pretty well established--thus the
F-16 as the "successor" to the A-10. (The F-16's main virtue as a CAS
aircraft seems to be that it can fly supersonic if it's not carrying
any CAS stores

Supersonic performance is so misunderstood by non-military aviators.
Until the current generation of supercruise fighters become
operational, supersonic performance was mainly an air defense asset,
where intercept time was crucial. It also implied a high
thrust-to-weight, which is nice to have in any fighter, but at the
cost of persistence. With the F-16 (and F-4 before, and Mirage, etc)
you have the best of both worlds: clean, you can go fast; load it up,
you can carry lots of stuff that goes boom and still turn and burn.
As a side note, it always amazed me how the brit press badmouthed the
F-15E saying it would be a terrible low altitude fighter bomber
because of it's high wing loading, then praise their industry for
turning an excellent low altitude fighter bomber (Tornado) into an air
defense fighter (Tornado F3).

Back to the F-16 and CAS, it's asset is that there are a lot of them,
they have excellent A/G sensors and targeting systems, they carry a
useful combat load, and they can get to the area fast and survive
pretty good. Not bad for a plane that was originally designed to be a
day only "guns and heaters" dogfigher!

Finally, about the paint - When the primary threat was the WP, all AF
tactical aircraft with an air-to-ground role had a dark green paint
scheme - the European 1, I think it was called - nice dark wraparound
that finally got rid of the idiotic white bellies (and the givaway
belly flash) that worked great in Europe but sucked big time at
Nellis! Then when the F-16 came into the inventory, the fashion
changed to grays, and even the F-4 got a nice gray cammo. A-10s just
took longer, I guess.

The whole subject of aircraft camouflage is fascinating; Keith Ferris
wrote some interesting stuff about it - some of our F-4Cs at Luke had
his schemes on them when I went through RTU and boy were they neat
looking.

All OT, anyway, and still no answer to my original question!

Regards,

Kirk

"Kirk Stant" wrote in message
om...
Finally, about the paint - When the primary threat was the WP, all AF
tactical aircraft with an air-to-ground role had a dark green paint
scheme - the European 1, I think it was called - nice dark wraparound
that finally got rid of the idiotic white bellies (and the givaway
belly flash) that worked great in Europe but sucked big time at
Nellis! Then when the F-16 came into the inventory, the fashion
changed to grays, and even the F-4 got a nice gray cammo. A-10s just
took longer, I guess.
Kirk

Guess you never saw an F-102, F-106 or even an F-101. The name of the paint
was even Air Defense Gray. Nothing new with the advent of the F-16.

Tex

"Tex Houston" wrote in message
...

Guess you never saw an F-102, F-106 or even an F-101. The name of the
paint
was even Air Defense Gray. Nothing new with the advent of the F-16.


Well, he did say "tactical aircraft with an air-to-ground role". I don't
recall ever seeing a gray F-102.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message ink.net...
"Tex Houston" wrote in message
...

Guess you never saw an F-102, F-106 or even an F-101. The name of the
paint
was even Air Defense Gray. Nothing new with the advent of the F-16.


Well, he did say "tactical aircraft with an air-to-ground role". I don't
recall ever seeing a gray F-102.

Actually, I think all of the F-102's were painted either gray (albeit
not the same flat colors used by the later tactical aircraft) or SEA
camo; I believe the type of alloy used on the skin required painting,
which is why you don't see any photos of "silver" F-102's other than
the prototype.

Brooks

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
om...

Actually, I think all of the F-102's were painted either gray (albeit
not the same flat colors used by the later tactical aircraft) or SEA
camo; I believe the type of alloy used on the skin required painting,
which is why you don't see any photos of "silver" F-102's other than
the prototype.


Hmmm, most of the photos of F-102s I've seen had them painted white.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
om...

Actually, I think all of the F-102's were painted either gray (albeit
not the same flat colors used by the later tactical aircraft) or SEA
camo; I believe the type of alloy used on the skin required painting,
which is why you don't see any photos of "silver" F-102's other than
the prototype.


Hmmm, most of the photos of F-102s I've seen had them painted white.


Now that's odd, because when I was looking for references to build and paint
a model F-102, all I could find were AD Grey schemes.

Nick

"Tex Houston" wrote in message news

Guess you never saw an F-102, F-106 or even an F-101. The name of the
paint
was even Air Defense Gray. Nothing new with the advent of the F-16.

Tex,

Sure, and even some ADC-tasked F-4s and T-33s (the Keflavic F-4Es come
to mind). Different gray, altogether - I don't think the glossy ADC
Gray was a camouflage at all! I was referring to the air combat (for
lack of a better term) flat multiple shade of gray scheme that the
F-16 introduced and that has quickly spread across the whole world, it
seems. I don't remember seeing any air defense (Guard or Reserve)
F-15s in ADC gray, but I could just be getting old...

Even the Navy switched from it's glossy gray and white paint schemes
to a very flat multiple gray scheme (which seems to really get dirty
on ship!).

Not particularly good looking, but very effective in the air, which is
what counts in the end, after all.

Interestingly, if you look at the late WW2 german camouflage schemes,
especially their nightfighters, they seem to have come to almost the
same conclusion about the best color to hide a plane in the air. By
that time, they probably has so many extra (fuel-less) planes that
their main concern was airborne concealment (to save valuable pilots),
so they moved to shades of gray.

I always thought that the Southeast Asia scheme (green/brown on top,
white bottom) was an amazingly stupid way to "camouflage" an airplane,
unless you are going to park it on a dirt road in the jungle (most
ramps aren't painted green and brown), or upside down in snow. In the
air, if you are close enough to see colors, you might as well turn
your gun on - and the white belly flash would attract aggressors for
miles around when you made a low altitude comm out turn. The
wraparound dark green European 1 scheme was a huge improvement,
although it did take some learning to initially figure out which way
lead was turning in tac spread!

Sigh, those were the days...

Kirk

(Kirk Stant) wrote in message . com...
Cub Driver wrote in message news).

Kirk, you must read Campbell's book The Warthog and the Close Air
Support Support, from Naval Institute Press. He was an A-10 pilot (and
A-7s for the Navy before that!) and he certainly lays out the case
that only the power of the U.S. Congress forced the A-10 down the
throat of the Air Force brass, and that the brass spent the next 20
years trying to get rid of it.

I'll have to get his book and read it. However, that position is not
reflected in the actual operational use of the A-10, which has been in
the limelight of every conflict we have faught since we got it - not a
good way to make a plane look bad!

And yet on the eve of ODS, the USAF had already announced its plans to
retire the A-10; performance during that conflict resulted in a rather
quick about-face on that.

There was also a lot of opposition
to the F-4, and to the F-16, and even to the F-111 when they were all
introduced, but they all turned out to be excellent weapons. I think
only the F-15 had no opponents from the start!

How many of those opponents to the F-4, or even the F-16, were in the
USAF, though?

And we go back to the
problem of single role aircraft - when you are cutting back, they are
the first to go, regardless of how good they are. Once the military
started getting funds again, the A-10 started getting a bunch of
excellent upgrades (LASTE,Aim-9 rails, etc.), and now they have
finally added a decent targeting pod - not something you do to a
"despised" weapon system. If only they would put some new motors on
it...

It was more than just the funds issue--as I said earlier, the rails
were already greased for the A-10 to head to AMARC en mass at the time
that ODS kicked off. As late as this past year a senior USAF officer
had to backtrack regarding a memo which purportedly sought to again
kill the A-10; there was a bit of discussion in the group about it at
the time. And I am not sure the A-10 was ever really a "single role"
aircraft; ISTR it was also looked on as a replacement for the A-1 in
the SAR escort role when it came into service, in addition to its
primary attack role, and later FAC role.



Even the supersonic b.s. seems to be pretty well established--thus the
F-16 as the "successor" to the A-10. (The F-16's main virtue as a CAS
aircraft seems to be that it can fly supersonic if it's not carrying
any CAS stores

Supersonic performance is so misunderstood by non-military aviators.
Until the current generation of supercruise fighters become
operational, supersonic performance was mainly an air defense asset,
where intercept time was crucial. It also implied a high
thrust-to-weight, which is nice to have in any fighter, but at the
cost of persistence. With the F-16 (and F-4 before, and Mirage, etc)
you have the best of both worlds: clean, you can go fast; load it up,
you can carry lots of stuff that goes boom and still turn and burn.
As a side note, it always amazed me how the brit press badmouthed the
F-15E saying it would be a terrible low altitude fighter bomber
because of it's high wing loading, then praise their industry for
turning an excellent low altitude fighter bomber (Tornado) into an air
defense fighter (Tornado F3).

Back to the F-16 and CAS, it's asset is that there are a lot of them,
they have excellent A/G sensors and targeting systems, they carry a
useful combat load, and they can get to the area fast and survive
pretty good. Not bad for a plane that was originally designed to be a
day only "guns and heaters" dogfigher!

Not sure how accurate that is; from what I have read, the F-16 was
planned as a multi-role platform during its initial development phase,
well before it ever entered into service.


Finally, about the paint - When the primary threat was the WP, all AF
tactical aircraft with an air-to-ground role had a dark green paint
scheme - the European 1, I think it was called - nice dark wraparound
that finally got rid of the idiotic white bellies (and the givaway
belly flash) that worked great in Europe but sucked big time at
Nellis! Then when the F-16 came into the inventory, the fashion
changed to grays, and even the F-4 got a nice gray cammo. A-10s just
took longer, I guess.

Euro 1 was known as the "Green Lizard" IIRC. And if you check into it,
I believe you will find the F-15 was sporting that flat blue-gray
scheme before while the YF-16 was still tooling around in red, white,
and blue.

Brooks


The whole subject of aircraft camouflage is fascinating; Keith Ferris
wrote some interesting stuff about it - some of our F-4Cs at Luke had
his schemes on them when I went through RTU and boy were they neat
looking.

All OT, anyway, and still no answer to my original question!

Regards,

Kirk