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A Breed Apart
Simplicity & Survivability are the Keys to a Beloved, Embattled & Effective Attack Jet
The workhorse of the air campaign against the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been the A-10 Thunderbolt II an ungainly, brutish jet that seems far removed from the glamorous image of the Air Force. Better known as the “Warthog,” the A-10, universally loved by ground troops and its pilots, has faced uphill battles within the Air Force since it was first conceived in the late 1960s. The story behind the A-10 is compelling and, for the ground-pounding grunt, one with a happy ending.
In fact, it is hard to believe the Warthog ever saw the light of day, what with a design philosophy that remains completely foreign to the Air Force technocracy and charged with a mission that the Air Force never wanted. In fact, its supporters beat back its forced removal from service three times. Despite attacks by partisans of the “higher, faster, farther” school, the A-10 successfully emerged as one of the most ferociously effective, feared and deadly weapons in the U.S. arsenal.
Since the 1947 creation of the U.S. Air Force as a separate military service, the U.S. Army has been barred by act of Congress, from operating armed fixed-wing aircraft, guaranteeing the Air Force a monopoly on the skies over the battlefield. Dominated by bomber generals and fighter pilots, the Air Force marginalized the mission of utmost concern to the Army: Close Air Support (CAS) — the direct aerial support of front-line ground troops. Lacking an effective CAS platform amongst the early fighter jets, which were hampered by poor endurance and small ordnance loads, in 1963, the USAF was forced to accept a propeller-driven Navy workhorse whose design dated to the closing days of World War II, the Douglas A-1E Skyraider. Slow and lumbering, the Skyraider was able to loiter over an area for hours and withstand enormous damage. It was perfect for CAS missions.
Though it remained in service until 1972, the A-1E was superceded in the late-1960s by the Republic F-105 Thunderchief, a fighter-bomber with poor maneuverability that was originally intended to perform nuclear attack missions. The F-105, initially known amongst ground-attack pilots as the “Superhog” before becoming famous as the “Thud,” was emblematic of the Air Force mindset — one where only two types of aircraft were considered worthy: high-altitude nuclear bombers and nimble, high-tech, supersonic fighters. Even aircraft that would never engage enemy aircraft in dogfights, such as the F-105 and the trouble-plagued F-111, were labeled fighters simply because they were not strategic bombers. With the arrival of the F-105 in the CAS role, the effective denial of air support by ground defenses became a reality, but only when the jet’s own limited fuel load and lack of maneuverability did not prevent it from reaching the target.
It was becoming clear to Congress, as the Army sought to lift its fixed-wing prohibition, that ground forces were not receiving the air support so vital to their survival and the Air Force realized that a new CAS aircraft was needed, lest it lose the air monopoly. With that realization, the A-X, or Attack-Experimental program began, but rather than posting requirements for a high-technology, high-speed attack jet, program manager Pierre Sprey proposed a simple, survivable single-seat plane that could loiter for long periods and prove highly maneuverable at low altitude and slow speeds. What emerged were two very different designs — Northrop’s YA-9, a conventional-looking aircraft with low-mounted engines and a streamlined fuselage, and Fairchild-Republic’s ungainly YA-10.
The prototype A-10 looked like nothing in the Air Force inventory - with square-tipped unswept wings, twin-tails, podded engines mounted high on the rear fuselage and a seven-barrel Gatling gun protruding from its chin. It was designed for the battlefield. Rather than being streamlined for aerodynamic efficiency, the A-10 was literally designed around the massive 30mm cannon created specifically for the A-X program — the General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger gun system. Fully loaded, with ammunition drum and loading mechanisms attached, the GAU-8/A measures more than 20 feet long and weighs almost 4,000 lbs. The Gatling gun fires a mix of depleted uranium (DU) and high-explosive (HE) shells, each nearly a foot in length, at a rate of over 3,900 rounds per minute — fast enough to expend a combat load in less than 15 seconds. Used against armored vehicles, the GAU-8/A shreds conventional armor plate and overwhelms even the latest reactive armor, providing just enough brute force and lack of finesse to alienate the core of the U.S. Air Force.
Fairchild’s engineers built the Thunderbolt II with survivability in mind, incorporating a backup mechanical control system in the event that the widely-separated primary and secondary hydraulic systems were damaged; the cockpit was surrounded by a ‘bathtub’ of titanium armor, designed to withstand large-caliber anti-aircraft fire; fuel tanks were located only in the fuselage, as ground fire was much more likely to strike the wings; the wings themselves were large enough that an aircraft could continue flying with more than half a wing shot away and even the main landing gear was designed to fold forward, only partially concealed by pods so that the partially-exposed wheels would still cushion a landing, even when retracted. Speaking of the extreme toughness posessed by the A-10, Sprey, who left the infighting at the Pentagon to found a recording studio, recently commented, “The pilots love them. Any of our jet fighters can be shot down by a .22-caliber rifle. But you can punch an A-10 full of holes and it will come home with sky showing through the wings.”
The competition proved that the A-10, built to operate from primitive forward bases and whose large wing made it both nimble at slow speed and forgiving to novice pilots as well as able to carry enormous combat loads, was far superior to its rival. And thus began the A-10’s first battle for survival.
The Air Force leadership believed that by funding the A-X program, it would prove to the Army and Congressional leaders that it was serious about fulfilling the CAS mission needs. Air Force leaders hoped that through a good faith effort, the USAF would not be forced to accept the A-10 into its flock, since procuring the A-10, they argued, would take money away from the fledging F-15 fighter and B-1A bomber programs, which were top strategic priorities within the post-Vietnam U.S Air Force. Congress, however, saw the A-10, which cost but $3 million apiece, as an affordable bargain compared to the then-$15 million dollar F-15 and the B-1A, which was projected to cost more than $100 million a copy, and ordered the Air Force to purchase more than 650 from Fairchild.
Envisioned to play a critical role in defending Western Europe from Soviet tank forces as they pushed their way through the Fulda Gap, the A-10 lacked every defining feature of its contemporary stablemates, the F-15 and F-16. Built without radar or an inertial navigation unit, pilots relied on maps, visual references and dead-reckoning to navigate in a cockpit dominated by round “steam gauge” instruments rather than multi-function computer displays. In fact the only concession to mid-1970s technology found within the cockpit was a small TV display used to aim optically-guided AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles. A small 'Pave Penny' laser-targeting pod, which recieved laser guidance, but could not designate targets, was sometimes mounted alongside the cockpit to provide a rudimentary precision capability to A-10s armed with Paveway bombs or laser-guided AGM-65 variants. Such laser-guided precision, nearly exclusive to high-altitude flight, was considered unimportant for CAS, where few missions would be flown above 2,000 feet or at speeds greater than 350 knots. For thirteen years, the A-10 remained unchanged, remaining ever vigilant for a mission that never came. Eventually, it became apparent that it never would. With the perceived loss of its primary mission, critics of the A-10 again moved in for the kill, determining that the Thunderbolt II would be withdrawn from U.S. service by the beginning of 1992, to be replaced in its CAS mission by the F-16, the USAF’s lightweight fighter-turned bomber, with a modification to accept a version of the GAU-8/A housed in a belly-mounted pod.
On August 2, 1990, the Warthog won a reprieve with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent U.S. build-up in the Middle East. Despite the high-technology focus of Operation Desert Storm, 144 A-10s deployed to Saudi Arabia without night-vision capability, GPS support or laser-targeting, yet they flew more than 8,900 sorties — nearly 30 percent of all Allied missions — and accounted for 50 percent of confirmed Iraqi equipment losses, including nearly 1,100 of Iraq's 1,500 tanks, 1,500+ armored vehicles and 51 SCUD missiles and launchers. Even with only a ‘marginal’ precision capability, A-10s fired 90 percent of Maverick missiles used in the Gulf War, employing them with great success. Designed to be easy to service in the field, A-10s maintained a 96 percent mission availability rate — the highest of any aircraft type during the first Gulf War — and proved the designers’ durability claims, repeatedly returning with large holes in the wings and fuselage.
Iraqi POWs related to their American captors just how much they feared the Warthog, with its distinctive shape and powerful cannon, above all other coalition jets. Almost silent from the frontal aspect and when flying above 5,000 feet, the A-10 became known as ‘whistling death,’ amongst Iraqis for the high-pitched whine of its General Electric TF-34 high-bypass turbofan engines heard once the aircraft had passed low overhead and the distinctive ‘burp’ of the GAU-8/A 30mm Gatling gun.
Despite the high rate of battlefield effectiveness during Desert Storm, the full potential of the A-10 was not realized by Air Force planners which used the A-10 primarily as a SCUD hunter and to mop-up armored units during the early days of the air war, preferring to send ‘high-tech’ platforms like the F-16 and F-15E Strike Eagle, equipped with smart bombs against targets for which the A-10 was designed. Only once those plans revealed their inherent flaws and the strike fighters were called away for more appropriate missions, did the A-10 get the chance to truly shine, as some of the most vocal critics of the Warthog began to sing their praises. Lieutenant General Charles Horner, who planned the air war component of Desert Storm said, during a briefing, “I take back all the bad things I have ever said about the A-10. I love them! They’re saving our asses!”
Once finished in the Gulf, the A-10 again faced the possibility of being withdrawn from service, but the experience during the Gulf War, and testing of the GAU-13 podded cannon on the F-16 again proved the inherent inaccuracy of pod-mounted gun systems. Further still, the F-16 was already being tasked with replacing the aging F-4G Phantom SAM-hunters known as ‘Wild Weasels’ and it became clear that pilots of the ‘airborne Swiss Amy knife’ were becoming overburdened. Despite being spared the axe, the A-10 saw a dramatic reduction in numbers, with more than 260 Warthogs being sent to the Air Force’s Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC) - better known as the “Boneyard”- in the Arizona desert. The remaining 390 or so A-10s were primarily distributed to Air National Guard (ANG) and Air Force Reserve (AFRES) units, with only a small number remaining in active-duty service following the military draw-down of the early 1990s. Being relegated to ANG and Reserve units did not mean that the A-10 would languish in obsolescence, as the low-tech jet began to catch up with the rest of the Air Force.
Originally designed for a service life of 8,000 hours, by 1994, most A-10s in service had flown between six and eight thousand hours. Under the auspices of a service life extension program (SLEP) aimed at keeping the Warthog in service until at least 2008, a number of significant upgrades and enhancements began to be added to the austere A-10s in service with Air Combat Command (ACC), ANG and AFRES units. First and foremost amongst these upgrades was the Low Altitude Safety and Targeting Enhancements (LASTE) System. LASTE incorporated a new computer control system into the A-10, serving to aid in greater bombing accuracy and functioning with the Ground Collision Avoidance System (GCAS), which reduced the danger of pilot disorientation at low-altitude by automatically returning the aircraft to a safe altitude and attitude in the event of an imminent collision with the ground. In addition, LASTE provided the A-10 with night vision-compatible cockpit displays and lighting - meaning that A-10 pilots no longer literally flew night missions in the dark - and a fully-functional heads-up display (HUD), which projects relevant flight and targeting data in front of the windscreen, keeping the pilot’s eyes out of the cockpit and off of the instruments.
The A-10 inventory is currently receiving another significant upgrade aimed at providing GPS and inertial navigation capability. An upgraded multi-function display that replaces the TV screen in the upper-right corner of the instrument panel will provide the A-10 pilot (who call themselves ‘Hog Drivers’) with an electronic moving map, marking the first time that Hog drivers will not be forced to rely on paper maps and dead-reckoning. The upgrade, known as the Embedded Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System, or EGI, also brought the A-10 upgraded communications equipment, making the Forward Air Controller (FAC) mission it adopted during the Gulf War a much more effective one. FACs act as airborne air traffic controllers and target locaters for strike fighters and bombers, a mission at which the A-10, with its long loiter time and incredible visibility from the cockpit, excels.
Just beginning to reach the active fleet of Warthogs is the ‘Hog-Up’ program, which will effectively double the service life of Thunderbolt II airframes, ensuring that the A-10 will serve with the Air Force until its currently planned retirement date of 2028. Hog-Up will replace select wing panels on most in-service A-10s, as well as preparing those in storage at AMARC for wing replacement or cannibalization in the event that the operational inventory falls below minimum levels. In addition, Hog-Up will replace the A-10s manually-activated chaff and flare decoy system with an automated system on all aircraft by 2005. Chaff is used to defeat radar-guided missiles and flares lure infrared-guided missiles, such as the shoulder-fired SA-7 surface—to-air missile, away from the aircraft. Future upgrades will likely focus on upgrades to the TF-34 turbofan engines, bringing greater thrust and fuel-efficiency to the Warthog as it approaches its projected retirement after nearly 50 years of service.
Having participated in combat missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the Warthog has again proven its worth in current operations in Iraq, flying a significant portion of sorties during Operation Iraqi Freedom. During the early portion of the air campaign, A-10 pilots routinely flew three to four missions every 48 hours, focused primarily on destroying the capability of Iraq’s much-vaunted Republican Guard, SCUD hunting in western Iraq and close air support of ground forces rapidly advancing from the south. With the allied seizure of forward air bases inside Iraq, the A-10s shifted their attention towards ‘tank plinking’ of the Iraqi armored divisions outside of Baghdad and on providing FAC support over the city itself. The maintenance-friendly A-10, again has achieved high mission-readiness rates and the long loiter times over targets have resulted in very little (if any) ordnance brought back from Warthog missions, especially when compared to sorties by F-16 and F-15E jets.
The A-10’s durability has also been highlighted over Iraq, with at least three Warthogs damaged by anti-aircraft fire and surface-to-air missiles. Despite severe damage, including, at least one plane having nearly lost an entire engine, all made it back, although a fourth A-10 was downed and the pilot recovered with minor injuries. The pilot of one of the A-10s, known by the callsign “Killer Chick,” who lost all hydraulic controls from ground fire over Baghdad noted, “the plane works as advertised... The stick was a lot harder to move, but it worked.” Speaking to a reporter the day after her Warthog was damaged, she had already flown two more missions in support of ground troops. Like other Hog Drivers, she routinely flies into some of the most dangerous battlefield conditions with confidence and shares an affinity for the troops on the ground: “We’re here to help the guys out on the ground and when they need our help, we’re there for them,” she told CNN.
Written by Daniel V. Smith, JINSA's Manager for Research and Communications.
| Detail photos of the damage to the A-10 flown by "Killer Chick" |
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