A-10 Thunderbolt II

[Weaver]

The thing is though, you may be DEPENDING on the FLIR at night, if it can white-out the FLIR it can damn sure white-out your NVGs, and if you're using the gun, you are, by definition, diving towards the ground at low altitude.

Wonder how bad it would really be? You see IIR footage where an explosion happens and the system seems to put a black dot over the hottest part of the image. Since the muzzle flash is predictable, I wonder if it could be set to put a black half-circle at the bottom of the display when the trigger is pressed?

[Sauragnmon]

Conversely, why not a steroscopic FLIR on the gear pods?  They're outside the smoke spread, and if you coordinate between the two, you should get a rather decent image, potentially...

[Shasper]

Problem with that Saur is the single-point refueling connection is located on the front of the port gearpod, while I *think* a weather radar is located on the starboard one (otherwise can someone explain to me why it's painted black???)

[PanzerWulff]

No, no, nooooo!  Only ever make guns BIGGER!!!!!
         

If Ya remember my A-10"Warzenschwein" armed with a 75mm Autoloading cannon I Agree
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,11176.msg152948.html#msg152948

And my favorite view of the model

"Panzer"

[Jschmus]

I've been trolling (in the fishing sense) for relevant data to ongoing threads here, I turned up the following snippet from overscan:

In 1976, Republic showed a model of the A-10 with long, slim nacelles housing non-afterburning versions of the YJ101 or RB199 engines, trading endurance for higher speed. This would have given an increase of 50 knots in level flight.

Several posts later someone posted the following image:

[elmayerle]

I've been trolling (in the fishing sense) for relevant data to ongoing threads here, I turned up the following snippet from overscan:

In 1976, Republic showed a model of the A-10 with long, slim nacelles housing non-afterburning versions of the YJ101 or RB199 engines, trading endurance for higher speed. This would have given an increase of 50 knots in level flight.

Several posts later someone posted the following image:

That's really one this engineer would love to see the details on.  Since the F404 doesn't have a mounted accessory-drive gearbox, but rather a drive for a power takeoff shaft to drive an airframe-mounted accessory drive (AMAD) gearbox (it makes dsiconnecting the engine for removal/replacement much easier), I wonder if the gearbox would be mounted in the nacelle or the drive would be modified to mate with a shaft going to a gearbox inside the airframe?  Either way would be some most interesting pieces of design engineering.

[elmayerle]

For a different A-10, several years ago I saw a picture of a proposal model of an A-10 in Thunderbirds markings; that would've been a rather different airshow display.

Getting back to upgrades to the A-10, I note that one that didn't make the A-10C was upgrading its TF34s with appropriate elements of late-model CF34s.

[pyro-manic]

With regards to the Hog's low speed, I wonder if it's the airframe as a whole, or just the wings that are the problem. As the fleet is/has been re-winged, would new, swept wings give a higher top speed? Obviously there are some pretty big CoG issues there as well, but in principle could it be done?

[elmayerle]

With regards to the Hog's low speed, I wonder if it's the airframe as a whole, or just the wings that are the problem. As the fleet is/has been re-winged, would new, swept wings give a higher top speed? Obviously there are some pretty big CoG issues there as well, but in principle could it be done?

Well, wing thickness is certainly an issue.  Going with a swept wing would introduce a lot of CoG issues as stores were dropped or shot off and I'm not sure you'd gain anything without going to a thinner airfoil.  On the other hand, would the improved transit time and attack speed be worth the cost of doing such a major redesign?  IMHO, for it's role, the A-10's current design and performance works well.  *chuckle* I can just see a two-seat A-10 standing off and sending in SLAM-ER's with man-in-the-loop backup to their imaging guidance systems; "Tag, you're dead!"

[Chris707]

Somewhere I've got a sketch of a 1970s F-R plan for a smaller "mudfighter" that was very "Warthoggish" - I wonder if you could get the same general effect by say doing a Skyfox type conversion of an F-94C (longer nose to permit the installation of a Vulcan - was done on a testbed a/c) and adding an A-10 type tail...alternatively, if there had ever been a T-46 kit, you could easily make an AT-46 Wartpiglet done up in lizard colors and dripping with Hellfires...

Chris
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F-80 Shooting Star plans

[Jschmus]

"Wartpiglet"

I love it!

[elmayerle]

Somewhere I've got a sketch of a 1970s F-R plan for a smaller "mudfighter" that was very "Warthoggish" - I wonder if you could get the same general effect by say doing a Skyfox type conversion of an F-94C (longer nose to permit the installation of a Vulcan - was done on a testbed a/c) and adding an A-10 type tail...alternatively, if there had ever been a T-46 kit, you could easily make an AT-46 Wartpiglet done up in lizard colors and dripping with Hellfires...

Chris
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http://www.dataviewbooks.com/f-80.html

well, there was a T-46 kit produced by Anigrand, but I believe it's now OOP.  As for the F-94C conversion, ISTR that there was a T-33 tested with a twin-tail configuration in place of the usual tail, though I think I'd be more inclined to do a bit more modern configuration for the verticals as they looked like scaled-down Ventura outer verticals.  Still, I see what you mean about a new aft fuselage for this conversion with twin-tails and two modern dry turbofans (perhaps a pair of dry Adours?)..

[Silver Fox]

Twin-tailed Skyfox with a GAU-12 in place of one of the original inlet tunnels. It would be very mildly assymetrical, nothing a little technique on the rudder pedals couldn't deal with. Tiptanks, or rocket pods as the mission dictates. A couple of hardpoints under the wing maybe taking a Mk 82, a single Maverick or a multiple Hellfire. Nice little mudmover!

In regards to the naval 'Hog discussed earlier in the thread being used for ASW... why not simply use it as a 'shooter'? A-10N carries ASW torps, but drops them where told. Rather than an unsuccessful prosecution because you had to conserve weapons on-station... bracket the sub and let it try to evade.

[Shasper]

So the Sea Hawg would work in conjunction with a S-3/SH-3/SH-60?

[elmayerle]

Twin-tailed Skyfox with a GAU-12 in place of one of the original inlet tunnels. It would be very mildly assymetrical, nothing a little technique on the rudder pedals couldn't deal with. Tiptanks, or rocket pods as the mission dictates. A couple of hardpoints under the wing maybe taking a Mk 82, a single Maverick or a multiple Hellfire. Nice little mudmover!

In regards to the naval 'Hog discussed earlier in the thread being used for ASW... why not simply use it as a 'shooter'? A-10N carries ASW torps, but drops them where told. Rather than an unsuccessful prosecution because you had to conserve weapons on-station... bracket the sub and let it try to evade.

How about a GAU-12 on one intake trunk with the magazine in the other and suitable transfer feed, it wouldn't be that different from the set-up on the AV-8B.  Though, actually, I don't see why a GAU-12 and magazine couldn't be fitted into a Skyfox nose, perhaps stradlling the nose gear well. 

Regarding the navalized 'Hog, perhaps go back to the Hunter-Killer concept used with the Grumman Guardian?  A two seat A-10N with a mad boom and pods with deployable MAD sensors on the two most outboard plons to give some triangulation of a target to 'service" and one or more single-seaters that could maintain contact with the target.  Add other appropriate ASW assets and the poor sub-driver is going to have a very, very bad day.