I must say that the A-10 is the plane that I have always dreamed about flying. About 5 years ago in the desert, 45 miles north of Las Vegas I saw a hog flying the terrain. I pulled over to watch and sat there for a while after he was gone and thought to myself that is one Lucky Bast@%d!
man what a thrill. you are living my dream. you and all the grouchos out there. all i ever wanted was to be a fighter pilot. simply awesome....thanks to you and all like you from the top to the bottom for your service to this great country.
I have flown many fighters in my career but I am sad I never had the chance to fly the hog. I did have an Operations Officer who said something about the hog when we were in Gulf War!
"An aircraft designed to take hits, WILL!"
I have couple of friends who experienced this first hand and they appreciated the titanium bathtub. Great design and awesome mission, of course you will have to learn to speak Army. I spent my last active duty assignment running around with the Army in a Humvee as an Air Liaison Officer (ALO).
Good luck, check six, and watch the recoil on that 30mm gun!
Congrats!! You'll absolutely love the Hog. They are 100% killing machines. You'll write your 9-lines on the inside of the canopy in grease pencil. As it should be. Time to deal death? When you squeeze the trigger to the first detent, the flight controls change so you can fine tune your strafe pipper aim. When you pull the trigger all the way, the jet automatically counteracts everything the air & gun do to push it around...what's under the pipper stays there & dies. About 5 seconds later the cockpit floods with gun smell (completely non-toxic ). 30 seconds after you fire, the gun goes *CLUNK* rotating 180deg to cool the other half of the barrels. Manly machine.
They fly just like RV's (about the same speed too ). You are going to have a blast!