Photo: USAF/Airman 1st Class Makenna Gott
Everyone with the slightest interest in military aviation knows a thing or two about the A-10 Thunderbolt. Also known as the Warthog among its pilots, it’s a deadly weapons’ platform that also comes with a very unique trait: it’s very unaesthetic.
You see, the A-10 has a role like few other planes out there: it was first and foremost designed as an attack aircraft with an emphasis on ground troops support. That means it ended up being drawn with straight lines, an overall strange positioning of parts, and unique equipment.
It has wings, of course, like any other aircraft, but we’re talking in this case about low-mounted ones with large surface areas that allow take-off and landing from and on short runways. These are located about halfway the airplane’s body and are helped in their mission by the large stabilizers at the rear, each sporting their own rudder. The stabilizers are mounted in a slightly higher plane than the main wings.
This configuration makes the plane look strange, but not as strange as the engines make it look, as they sit mounted to each side of the fuselage, close to the stabilizers and directly to the body, and visibly higher than the wings, contributing to its strangeness.
Another ugly feature of the plane, but to be feared if you happen to be at the wrong end of America’s wrath, is the thing’s nose, which hides a seven-barrel Gatling gun called GAU-8 Avenger.
All in all, the A-10 is considered by many one of the world’s ugliest military airplanes, but it’s exactly this ugliness that makes it so special. And in the proper light, ugly can be stunning too, as clearly demonstrated by this recently-released USAF photo of the A-10.
We’re looking at a Thunderbolt deployed with the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron. As you see it here, in the perfect play between light and shadow, it was flying over the Nevada Test and Training Range back in mid-September, approaching whoever was holding the camera at just the right moment, from just the right angle, and with just the right bank to make for a wallpaper-quality shot.
It has wings, of course, like any other aircraft, but we’re talking in this case about low-mounted ones with large surface areas that allow take-off and landing from and on short runways. These are located about halfway the airplane’s body and are helped in their mission by the large stabilizers at the rear, each sporting their own rudder. The stabilizers are mounted in a slightly higher plane than the main wings.
This configuration makes the plane look strange, but not as strange as the engines make it look, as they sit mounted to each side of the fuselage, close to the stabilizers and directly to the body, and visibly higher than the wings, contributing to its strangeness.
Another ugly feature of the plane, but to be feared if you happen to be at the wrong end of America’s wrath, is the thing’s nose, which hides a seven-barrel Gatling gun called GAU-8 Avenger.
All in all, the A-10 is considered by many one of the world’s ugliest military airplanes, but it’s exactly this ugliness that makes it so special. And in the proper light, ugly can be stunning too, as clearly demonstrated by this recently-released USAF photo of the A-10.
We’re looking at a Thunderbolt deployed with the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron. As you see it here, in the perfect play between light and shadow, it was flying over the Nevada Test and Training Range back in mid-September, approaching whoever was holding the camera at just the right moment, from just the right angle, and with just the right bank to make for a wallpaper-quality shot.
Google News