Photo: USAF/Airman 1st Class Courtney Sebast
The A-10 Thunderbolt must be without question one of the ugliest military aircraft ever made. Yet as we all know, the military is not about beauty contests, and the looks of the things it uses have nothing to do with its capabilities.
Introduced by Fairchild Republic in the 1970s as a close air support machine, the A-10, which in the meantime earned itself the nickname Warthog on account of its physique, is one of the pillars of the modern-day American military, despite the fact that not many of them have been made before production ceased – a little over 700 have been put together, none of which have been deployed by other nations.
Packing two General Electric turbofan engines positioned to either side of the rear fuselage, the A-10 can move through the air at speeds of 420 mph (676 kph), swooping down on its target with the roar of a mythical beast. While doing so, it can fire a seven-barrel Gatling gun called Avenger from as high as 4,000 feet (1,200 meters), hitting an area on the ground just 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter.
All that makes the A-10 a fearsome machine while in the air, but the look of the thing on the ground is by no means tamer, as seen in the main photo of this piece.
Two of these beasts are seen here on the tarmac of the Avon Park Air Force Range in Florida, during an exercise called Mosaic Tiger 22-1 that was conducted there in November.
The planes belong to the 23rd Wing stationed at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, regarded as a front line unit and created back in 1948 to defend Guam. The people that make it up currently use Thunderbolts and HC-130 airplanes and HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters for their missions.
Packing two General Electric turbofan engines positioned to either side of the rear fuselage, the A-10 can move through the air at speeds of 420 mph (676 kph), swooping down on its target with the roar of a mythical beast. While doing so, it can fire a seven-barrel Gatling gun called Avenger from as high as 4,000 feet (1,200 meters), hitting an area on the ground just 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter.
All that makes the A-10 a fearsome machine while in the air, but the look of the thing on the ground is by no means tamer, as seen in the main photo of this piece.
Two of these beasts are seen here on the tarmac of the Avon Park Air Force Range in Florida, during an exercise called Mosaic Tiger 22-1 that was conducted there in November.
The planes belong to the 23rd Wing stationed at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, regarded as a front line unit and created back in 1948 to defend Guam. The people that make it up currently use Thunderbolts and HC-130 airplanes and HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters for their missions.
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