Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Save the WART HOG: Give It to the Army

I looked them up and can see where that is certainly possible. They look to be a nifty little aircraft.

MMM,well when I wuz in a NG tank battalion, we operated in Ft. Drum. Got to see A-10's all the time. Army Engineers are ALWAYS looking to rip schit up with their heavy equipment. Fun stuff for them. Not a biggie for the Army Engineers to cut a decent runway and being a very hard use aircraft, it wouldn't need much more than PSP for a surface. Almost as good as Russian aircraft for primitive fields.

Hunter Army Airfield. Lawson Army Airfield (Ft. Benning). AP Hill in VA has at least a 5000ft runway. Those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I've jumped on quite a few more.

seabees aren't any less inclined when given the option.

Seen that happen first hand, when I was in the Army...

Biggs Army Airfield (formerly Biggs AFB) in El Paso springs to mind, former B-52 and KC-135 base. Part of Fort Bliss now. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biggs_Army_Airfield

This got me to thinking�how many army bases can handle troop transports?

Used to watch the Warthogs all the time out of Richards-Gebaur south of Kansas City.

Ft Carson has Butts Army Airfield also, I'm not sure if it is long enough for A10's though. Info at the link.
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KFCS

I've landed in a couple of big Boeing jets at Ft. Campbell, so I suspect that strip will handle an A-10.

Standard tactical runways shoule be no less than 8K and like tits, more is better we had a 12K at Cecil Field. While the Wartie (and S-3) can comfortably take off from shorter runways, your envelope gets way too iffy and all your "V"s (VCrit etc) get way down. Great airplane and the Air Force did a great job with it, but nowadays between bean counters and requirements, they all want a common airframe which hardly ever works.

Ft Rich has a runway as well, seen many a C-23 Sherpa fly over the Glenn highway and Ft Rich.

Yes, kill the best run service and give it to the worst run service.

Even during the Cold War, SAC was only a fraction of USAF operations.

Found some good stuff with pictures at:
warthog - Michael Yon
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/warthog.htm
Mar 23, 2010 ... The A-10 �Warthogs�

Kandahar, Afghanistan
23 March 2010

[�]
Lieutenant Colonel Eric Murphy is an A-10 pilot from Baltimore.
Lt Col Murphy flies with the 104th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron from the Maryland National Guard. In his day job, �Captain� Eric Murphy is a commercial pilot who flies A320s but today he�s not flying British tourists traveling within the United States. He�s going to Helmand Province to cover the British �Royal Welsh.� I remembered some Royal Welsh from Iraq. There had been much fighting. A lot of killing that went both ways. They had been Men of Valor.

As Lt Col Murphy crawled in, I wished him luck in covering the British, but didn�t say that some of those British soldiers are my personal friends. It was good to see the A-10s heading out there. The Brits appreciate it.
[�]
A-10s have more tricks than Harry Potter, such as the flares designed to lure heat-seeking missiles away from the engines. Over these battlefields, pilots often pop the flares as �We see you� warnings to the enemy. If the enemy is in the open and no civilians are around, they are unlikely to get a friendly flare warning, but sometimes it�s better to hold off on the big weapons; the enemy might be fighting from a built-up area.

Today, Lt Col Murphy�s 30mm cannon is loaded with 1,150 rounds. The 30mm can destroy tanks, but believe it or not, typically will not penetrate the walls around Afghan homes. When the 30mm fires, it�s almost unbelievable. The bullets don�t fly in a laser-like stream, but sort of spray in a lethal mist, as if the cannon is shot-painting a swath with huge bullets. If the enemy is in the open, the cannon is like a weapon of mass destruction. When people are hit with M-16 bullets, the wound is often more like a couple small holes, but when bodies get hit with weapons this large, they fly in pieces�

How could I have forgotten that one? Ft Wainwright as well.

This is the best video I've seen on this magnificent plane. IIRC, this is the one where the pilot says, "When you fire that 30mm, the cockpit fills up with the smell of gunpowder....it smells like...victory!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_ZBFIUYrz4

Who cares if there are Army Conus bases capable of supporting the A-10, there aren't any overseas Army bases capable, which is the whole point. The A-10 (hopefully) will never be used in the U.S., so what's the point.

I think the only Army base in Europe capable of supporting the A-10 was Echterdingen AB, which was used for Mohawks and it was closed years ago.

So they'd have to use USAF bases anytime they deployed, they'd need an entire new fixed wing branch of the Army trained and set up to support it logistically, not to mention train pilots.

The Army would be better off giving an equal allocation of $$ to let USAF keep the A-10. It would probably cost half as much.

First Hogs I saw fly in here were solid OD with white US Army on their tail feathers..that was quite awhile back not sure of the year.

For your viewing enjoyment. Years ago, one was here and did serious aerobatics, including a hammerhead stall. Then flew west, dropped below the trees and flew down the creek, turned left down the river, then popped up from the trees in an attack run center stage. It don't get any better then that.

The 442 FW transferred from Richards-Gebaur to Whiteman AFB down at Knob Noster, Missouri in 1994 and now parks its A-10s next to all those B-2 bombers.

Marines like their own fixed wing ground support. They think it works better for them then depending on Air Force.

Army thinks so too.

Army likes the ugly old Warthog and wants to give them a home.

Air Force doesn�t want those old Warthogs anymore.

No-brainer.

Warthog doesn't require much runway.
Minimum Take Off Distance -�945.00 metres. - 3,100.36 feet
Minimum Landing Distance -610.00 metres. - 2,001.29 feets�

http://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/A-10-Warthog/8