AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 180 / 185

Plate 180 of 185 · Cold War · Close air support aircraft

Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II

A-10A, painted as 77-0259, IWM Duxford’s Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II, which flew with the US Air Force’s 10th Tactical Fighter Wing from RAF Alconbury and was flown to Duxford when it retired in 1992, and is now shown in the American Air Museum: the US Air Force’s single-seat close-support aircraft, 57 ft 6 in in span, with a long straight wing ending in drooped tips, main undercarriage in pods under the wing that leaves the wheels partly exposed, two General Electric TF34 turbofans in nacelles on pylons high on the rear fuselage, twin fins at the tips of the tailplane, a bubble canopy and the muzzle of the seven-barrel GAU-8/A Avenger cannon under the nose, with the nosewheel offset to starboard, shown standing on its tricycle undercarriage with all eleven pylons empty: ‘European I’ wrap-around camouflage in dark green, medium green and dark grey, a black ‘259’ on the nose, low-visibility national insignia with the USAFE shield above it, ‘AR’ over ‘259’ on the outer faces of the fins and the white refuelling-receptacle guide lines on the nose (no photograph shows the upper surfaces of the wings and tailplane, so their two-green pattern is not a copy of the real one, and the starboard fuselage mirrors the photographed port side).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as 77-0259, IWM Duxford’s Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II, which flew with the US Air Force’s 10th Tactical Fighter Wing from RAF Alconbury and was flown to Duxford when it retired in 1992, and is now shown in the American Air Museum: the US Air Force’s single-seat close-support aircraft, 57 ft 6 in in span, with a long straight wing ending in drooped tips, main undercarriage in pods under the wing that leaves the wheels partly exposed, two General Electric TF34 turbofans in nacelles on pylons high on the rear fuselage, twin fins at the tips of the tailplane, a bubble canopy and the muzzle of the seven-barrel GAU-8/A Avenger cannon under the nose, with the nosewheel offset to starboard, shown standing on its tricycle undercarriage with all eleven pylons empty: ‘European I’ wrap-around camouflage in dark green, medium green and dark grey, a black ‘259’ on the nose, low-visibility national insignia with the USAFE shield above it, ‘AR’ over ‘259’ on the outer faces of the fins and the white refuelling-receptacle guide lines on the nose (no photograph shows the upper surfaces of the wings and tailplane, so their two-green pattern is not a copy of the real one, and the starboard fuselage mirrors the photographed port side). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (997 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the A-10A modelled here.

History

The A-10A Thunderbolt II

In Vietnam the US Air Force found that its fast jets were poorly suited to supporting troops on the ground, and it had come to rely on the slow, piston-engined Douglas Skyraider for the job. In 1966 it began the A-X programme for a purpose-built replacement: an aircraft that could loiter near the battlefield for a long time, carry a heavy load of weapons, fly from short and rough airstrips and survive hits from ground fire. Faced with the huge Soviet tank forces in Europe, the service also wanted a big gun that could knock out armour. Northrop and Fairchild Republic were each asked to build two prototypes, and Fairchild’s YA-10A first flew on 10 May 1972, six days before Northrop’s YA-9A. After a fly-off in late 1972 the Fairchild design won in January 1973.

The A-10 was designed around its gun, the General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger, a seven-barrel 30 mm cannon nearly 20 ft long with its ammunition drum. It fires shells with depleted-uranium cores, and the nose landing gear is set off to one side so that the barrel can fire along the centreline. The pilot sits in a titanium “bathtub” that protects the cockpit from ground fire. The flying controls are duplicated and backed up by manual cables, and the aircraft was meant to fly home with one engine, half a tail or large parts of a wing shot away. The engines sit high on the rear fuselage, clear of debris thrown up from rough strips, with the tailplane and twin fins screening their exhaust from heat-seeking missiles. The first production aircraft flew in October 1975 and the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing at Davis-Monthan, Arizona, received the first for training in 1976. Officially it was named after Republic’s P-47 Thunderbolt, but crews called it the Warthog.

In all 716 were built, including the two prototypes, and production ended in 1984. From 1979 the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing flew more than a hundred A-10s from RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, with detachments sent forward to bases in West Germany, and the 10th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Alconbury flew them from 1988 to 1992. In the Gulf War of 1991 A-10s destroyed large numbers of Iraqi tanks, vehicles and artillery pieces, and they later fought over the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The Air Force has tried several times to retire the type, but the fleet has been kept up to date: the A-10C upgrade added precision weapons and modern cockpit displays, and many aircraft have been given new wings. In the gazetteer it can be seen at IWM Duxford and at the Bentwaters Cold War Museum, on the base where the A-10s served.

This airframe

A-10A 77-0259

77-0259The airframe modelled

77-0259 is an A-10A that served with the US Air Force in Europe and was last flown by the 10th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Alconbury, in Cambridgeshire, which carried the tail code ‘AR’. When the wing gave up its A-10s in 1992, it was flown the short distance from Alconbury to Duxford. It still belongs to the National Museum of the US Air Force and is on loan to IWM Duxford, where it is displayed in the American Air Museum. The model shows it as photographed there, in the ‘European I’ wrap-around camouflage of dark green, medium green and dark grey that USAFE A-10s wore: a black ‘259’ on the nose, low-visibility national insignia with the blue USAFE shield above it, ‘AR’ over ‘259’ on the outer faces of the fins, a small ejection warning triangle under the canopy and the white refuelling-receptacle guide lines on the nose. All eleven pylons are shown empty. No photograph shows the upper surfaces of the wings and tailplane, so their pattern of two greens is not a copy of the real one, and the starboard side mirrors the photographed port side.

See it at IWM Duxford

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the A-10A Thunderbolt II in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 185 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.