100ft at tactical airspeeds requires 100% of your time dedicated to terrain clearance. Not to mention that there is nothing a Hornet guy can employ from that low.
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Hawg dude gets a second DFC
- Thread starter Swanee
- Start date
100ft at tactical airspeeds requires 100% of your time dedicated to terrain clearance. Not to mention that there is nothing a Hornet guy can employ from that low.
Except I watched him effectively engage targets with his gun, while at that altitude.
I don't disagree with you that in a jet, any jet, flying low is tough. What I am simply saying is that in my experience, the A-10 trains for down low fighting much, much more than the other pointy nose jets. As has been mentioned, the A-10 is a tough S.O.B. so that's part of it. When I read that article and see that the A-10 is getting low where other aircraft wouldn't, or couldn't, I'm not surprised.
The A-10 gun cants downward.
Actually, the point is the speed. An A-10 at 100ft is flying much, much slower than a pointy nosed jet, if I had to guess 200-250 knots. 100ft low angle strafe in a 400 knot jet is asking to run into the ground. I don't know what the low altitude training rules are in the Navy but AF jets generally don't get slower than 350 knots below 10k.
Without the A-10, the answer to the weather problem is helicopters and/or dropping through the weather. While this might be anathema to Army doctrine; the AH-64E is getting Link-16, if they can generate CAT-1/2 coords and get training as a FAC(A). Likewise an investment to get JTACs a point and "shoot" coord generation/passage capability that doesn't weigh a fuck ton.
Without the A-10, the answer to the weather problem is helicopters and/or dropping through the weather. While this might be anathema to Army doctrine; the AH-64E is getting Link-16, if they can generate CAT-1/2 coords and get training as a FAC(A). Likewise an investment to get JTACs a point and "shoot" coord generation/passage capability that doesn't weigh a fuck ton.
Where did you hear this? I'm 99% sure this is wrong.
^Stirring the pot?
^good counterargument and rebuttal of original speculative/anecdotal claim?
^more good information to counter the OP?
^not letting facts get in the way of a preferred opinion?
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Harriers have a downward canted gun, so I wouldn't be surprised if the A-10 does. That said, doing a gun run at an altitude where a helo at 100 ft is looking down at you sounds pointless at best and just bullshit at worst. Way to set yourself up for a split second trigger squeeze and a ridiculous grazing angle.
http://imgur.com/Uk7AFpW
For fun, I did a little math about a Super Hornet doing a strafe from 100ft (I don't think the discussion is sensitive, please delete this if it is). The gun cants two degrees up, so to strafe a target one degree down would require a three degree degree flight path. Assuming instantaneous pushover and traveling a 500 knots, the SH would hit the ground in about 2 seconds. Of course, in real life it would take time to get the nose down and aim, and you would have to give yourself time to recover from the strafe.
Basically strafing from that altitude isn't a matter of training, it's an airframe capability that the A-10 might have with its gun canted two degrees down, but the Super Hornet does not.
From wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger
"The firing barrel also lies just below the aircraft's center of gravity, being bore sighted along a line 2 degrees below the aircraft's line of flight"
Also I just noticed that it took him six and a half years to get his medal. Wow.
Well, I've been wrong before. I'll have to ask some A-10 bros. If the intent was to put the recoil force though the center of gravity it sounds legit. Still doesn't change the fact that they're flying waaay slower. Even with a down cant, a Hornet can't compete with low altitude capability.
As to the shooting from that altitude, that was the bread and butter of the A-10 in the 80's. They still train to that in this day and age, wingman don't get cleared down to that altitude right away, but it really is a part of their training. They don't have to worry about air to air, so they can focus on just air to ground.
I'm not saying we should keep it, or get rid of it. But the reality is that the A-10 community has the luxury of focusing on CAS and CSAR to the exclusion of all the other shit that a typical multi-role jet squadron has to train. We need to understand that the pink body in the aircraft can only be good at so many things.
I'm not trying to stir any pot or embellishing whatsoever. I've seen those low altitude flight profiles multiple times from an A-10 and I've seen them use their cannon and put rounds on target from that altitude. I've also debriefed over the HUD tapes and could clearly see the bullet impacts on target while they were at that altitude.
I have no idea of the design considerations for the A-10 and I'm not saying it's some magical airplane. I'm simply stating what I have seen with my own two eyes and it seems logical and truthful that the A-10 was, in the flight where the dude earned a DFC, capable of getting lower and getting rounds on target at that altitude as compared to an F/A-18.
Different A/C designed for different things. The negative cant on the gun and slower airspeed lets the Hawg driver do that. To be tactically feasible, a Hornet guy would have to go fast enough and bunt the nose enough that (s)he would end up kamikaze-ing the target. [Edit: upon further reflection, I realize you'd actually create a smoking hole short of the target. Irregardless . . .]
Yet a Hornet could go toe-to-toe with a Fulcrum and live. Bet an A-10 would be hating life. Different engineering for different roles. That said, I would be interested to know what the A-10 community's party line is concerning some of the double-digit point defense weapons that are getting rolled out nowadays. You can't always count on being completely unopposed doing CAS; the enemy gets a vote. Again, wish we had a SIPR AW . . .
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Very true.........but until the Taliban starts flying MiG-29s, both assets are needed, and the Hornet drivers are getting pretty good at CAS.