Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II facts for kids

A silver A-10

The A-10 Thunderbolt II (also called the Warthog) is an attack aircraft made by Fairchild Republic. It first flew in 1972 and was introduced in 1977. It is designed to drop bombs, fire rockets, missiles, and its 30 mm Gatling Gun at enemies on the ground (like tanks). It is named after the World War II P-47 Thunderbolt. It is not as fast as most military jets, but it is tough, heavily armored, and can turn well. The A-10 is also used as a CAS (close air support) aircraft, which involves flying slowly over a target area and destroying any targets in that area.

This A-10 took heavy antiaircraft fire during the Iraq War but the pilot was still able to return to base.

The A-10 is 53 feet, 4 inches (16.16 meters) long, 14 feet, 8 inches (4.42 meters) high, has a wingspan of 57 feet, 6 inches (17.42 meters), can go 420 miles per hour, and can weigh 51,000 pounds (22,950 kilograms) at heaviest. It is armed with a 30 mm GAU-8 Gatling gun, and can have a few tons of bombs or missiles. It can also carry radar-jamming pods so it cannot be seen on radar, and chaff, which can confuse missiles fired at the A-10.

The Gun

While the A-10 has a lot of room on its wings to carry bombs and missiles, its main weapon is the gun, called the GAU-8 Avenger. It is a very long and heavy gun called a Gatling cannon, since it is a both an autocannon (fires large bullets very fast) and Gatling gun (has more than one barrel, which spin while being shot) The Avenger is so big that the A-10 had to be built around it, which created the joke that the A-10 does not have a gun attached like other warplanes, but it is the Avenger that has a plane attached. The A-10 is the only airplane to use the Avenger, other American planes instead use the smaller Vulcan, which is also a Gatling cannon but with a smaller bullet.

Because the Avenger fires such big bullets (artillery shells 3 cm wide, which also explode) at such a high rate of fire (up to 40 every second) many believe it can destroy any target very easily, even tanks with thick armour such as the M1 Abrams. This is wrong. The bullet can go through thin metal on a car or truck, but it cannot against the thick metal covering a tank. It can only destroy them because most tanks only have thin metal on their top to make them lighter. If an A-10 manages to shoot there, then it is bad for the tank, but if it shoots the front or side where the metal is thicker, then the tank will not be damaged.

Related pages

• P-47 Thunderbolt

Images for kids

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  By the time of the Vietnam War, the 1940s-vintage propeller-driven Skyraider was the USAF's only dedicated close air support aircraft. It was slow, vulnerable to ground fire, and relatively lightly armed.

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  The Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne appeared to offer the possibility of handing much of the tactical air-to-ground role to the U.S. Army.

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  An A-10A of pre-glass cockpit design

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  Two A-10s in formation

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  A-10C Warthog cockpit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum 2012 Become a Pilot Day

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  A-10 inboard profile drawing

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  Front view of an A-10 showing the 30 mm cannon and offset front landing gear

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  Front view of the A-10's GAU-8 installation

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  A-10 Thunderbolt II, fully armed

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  AN ALQ-184 ECM Pod on display at a USAF museum. It is mounted on either pylon 1 or 11 (outside pylons) on the A-10C

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  An A-10 from the 343rd Tactical Fighter Wing prepares to drop Mark 82 bombs at the Yukon Command Training Site in 1988.

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  Arkansas Air National Guard A-10C firing an AGM-65 air-to-surface missile on a firing range at Davis-Monthan AFB

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  A-10A after Operation Desert Storm, 1992

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  An A-10A during Operation Allied Force

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  A-10 over Afghanistan, 2011

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  An A-10 peels away from a KC-135 tanker over Afghanistan, February 2011 with Pave Penny pod visible and featuring a false canopy painted in dark gray on the underside.

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  23rd Fighter Group A-10 Thunderbolt IIs on alert

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  U.S. Air Force crewmen perform maintenance on an A-10's nose in the Persian Gulf region in 2003

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  A newly updated A-10C arrives at Davis-Monthan AFB, 29 November 2006.

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  An A-10 Thunderbolt II refueling

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  Four A-10s of the 103d Fighter Squadron, Pennsylvania Air National Guard, fly in formation during a refueling mission.

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  A-10C of the 163d Fighter Squadron, Fort Wayne Air National Guard

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  USAF A-10A showing kill markings from Operation Desert Storm, 1991

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  An A-10 firing its 30 mm GAU-8 Gatling gun during testing

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  A-10A at Museum of Aviation, Robins AFB

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  Schematics of A-10C

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  A-10's 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger cannon

See also

In Spanish: Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II para niños