officially known as the Thunderbolt II but universally as the Warthog because of its looks over the last 30 years this beast has earned another name on the battlefield The Tank Buster. we're not the high sleek fast fire we're the low slow ugly you know warthog rolling around in the mud and doing the mission that's where we love to be it's amazing 30 millimeter seven-barreled cannon is the most powerful gun ever to take to the skies you go in there squeeze the trigger a bunch of smoke. Wow!
that's awesome. it smells like victory. with a single warthog carrying enough weaponry to disable 16 main battle tanks the A-10 is a legend to the soldiers who depend on life-saving air support.
you can talk to troops on the ground and they love hearing that sound it's the sound of freedom for them Okay yes when i saw the SAM it uh you know there was it was a nice white smoke trail following it and i couldn't miss it really with a little plume where it had launched out of the of a revetment you could see the rocket motor and you know it wasn't moving in my canopy laterally you know two-dimensional picture is just getting bigger it ain't moving left or right which means it's on a collision course. so what you want to do is get it to move left or right preferably uh aft so it'll miss behind and you want to see some what they call line of sight relative motion so I made that happen and sure enough the last minute it went real line of sight real far to the back and missed behind. so I went from being whoa that scared the living daylights out of me to go to losing my professionalism somewhat and get really pissed off at this guy for scaring me and uh so uh he was gonna die for doing that because you know where that SAM launch came from there was no mistaking where it had come from.
my flight lead rolls in he uh put some 30 millimeter down on it no secondary so that means nothing blows up so I'm not sure if we hit it I'm about ready to roll in you know now we should have left at this point . We're almost out of gas. In fact we would have left it if i haven't been launched on by a SAM.
We made guys pay for shooting at us Throughout operation Iraqi freedom the A-10 Warthog was the most well-known and feared plane in the U. S anthems. I think it was the best equipped air force and army rated fight that we could have.
its ability to work in close support with ground troops to take out enemy positions and tanks and to act as a spotter plane made it a linchpin and a victory over Saddam Hussein and his regime. we're kind of like the insurance guy up there or the 911 when they need help they call and that's who they expect to be there but for the vision of a handful of men this aircraft might never have been built in the first World War aircraft were used as a way of supporting the troops on the ground whatever resistance they came up against the planes were called in to either bomb or strafe the enemy close support in cases of mobile warfare of moving fronts a fast moving combat whether it was a retreat or advance close support was overwhelmingly important. In those situations of battlefield chaos where it's very hard to get good artillery support, suddenly airplanes become overwhelmingly important and overwhelmingly effective.
During the Second World War such fighter bombers as the Typhoon, The Tempest, The Mustang and The Thunderbolt one were used in close air support roles to good effect. but one single aircraft was feared as the ultimate close air support machine the German Juncker's 87 dive bomber nicknamed The Stuka and fitted with a screaming siren demonstrated the most effective use of close air support ever seen this was a time when the Germans were enormously outnumbered by the Russians and yet having extraordinary successes against very heavy huge Russian tank forces and a key component of that were these Stukas of which the most famous unit was led by Colonel Rudel who was the most decorated pilot of World War II. Colonel Hans Ulrich Rudel's unit wreaked havoc on the Russian front with Rudel himself amassing a personal score of 511 destroyed Russian tanks but with the defeat of Germany in 1945 the success of close air support was largely overlooked On September the 18th 1947 the United States air force was born its main focus to deliver nuclear weapons close air support was not a priority.
This is the extraordinary part of the whole genesis of the A-10 the air force traditionally from the beginnings of world war II on had no interest in close support. Have none today. They don't like working for the army.
They prefer running their own war totally independent of everybody else a very natural bureaucratic reaction during the Vietnam war the air force had to rely on aircraft such as the A-1 Skyraider to protect its ground forces. But what was clearly needed was an aircraft specifically designed to carry large bomb loads, absorb heavy ground fire, and fly for long periods at low altitude over the battleground. taking the initiative a group of highly skilled engineers at the pentagon came up with the specifications for a close air support aircraft.
with the hope that the air force would eventually see the light we designed the airplane based on the close support done by these A-1 pilots we used the experience of the Germans on the Russian front with Stukas and we actually interviewed Colonel Rudel who was still alive at the time. We used his experience very heavily in the design of the airplane we tried to shape an airplane that was directly useful in specifically support of army troops in the field. At first in aviation history the air force eventually initiated a competition for an aircraft to be specifically designed for close air support when the request for the proposal on the A-10 came in I immediately was assigned to work on the aerodynamics of that fundamentally she was to be a close air support airplane which was capable of knocking out heavy tanks as well as operating from an unprepared short field of 1500 feet Fairchild Republic took on the challenge of designing an aircraft unlike any ever built the winning design would be a stable straight winged aircraft to allow for excellent lift and maneuverability combined with the General electric's TF34 turbofan engines which would give it a high enough thrust for takeoff and a low enough fuel consumption to enable the plane to have very high loiter capability essential for the role with unbeatable durability and an easy to repair maintenance program.
these would be the ideal engines to fly in a hostile battle zone but for the Fairchild team the challenges became apparent immediately The typical way to build a jet airplane and the reason that all jet fighters are impossible to use in this close support mission because they all have fuel wrapped around the engine once you have fuel wrapped around an engine a 22 rifle will kill you one of our very first design rules was the fuel had to be someplace other than the engine not only was the fuel safely stored in the fuselage away from the engines the fuel tanks also had unique inbuilt fire suppression capabilities the aircraft's hydraulics could also withstand serious firepower we required that every hydraulic control had to be backed up by a simple mechanical cable system that's much harder to shoot out if we could come back with the hydraulic system shot out half the tail shot off a piece of the wing shot off had two engines you could come home on one the pilot was bathed in a titanium tub which could take 20 millimeter shells it was really a piece of machinery that you could fly into hell and back the A-10 survivability was matched with a deadly capacity a huge 30 millimeter Gatling gun developed specifically for the A-10 the GAU-8 Avenger capable of firing almost 4 000 rounds a minute gave the aircraft the ability to blow through tank armor she was designed primarily with a Gatling gun in the nose and it was built to destroy anything that was considered an armored weapon on the ground but she was built around the gun and the gun was a given from day one Fairchild Republic won the competition to build the first aircraft in U. S aviation history specifically designed for close air support but before the air force would give the go-ahead they wanted hard evidence that the aircraft and the gun could perform outstandingly together the need would spark a series of simulation tests unlike any ever produced little would its designers realize these tests would change the face of aviation history Fairchild Republic had produced the ultimate piece of machinery to perform the role of close air support but the Air Force was reluctant to go into production until they had seen for themselves that the aircraft could fulfill its very specific combat role in a series of amazing tests the A-10 and its remarkable gun were put through their paces in an effort to create a full-on cold war battle scenario we had secretly assembled what we proudly boasted at the time was like the third or fourth largest tank army in the world over 300 Soviet tanks from all over the world off junk heaps and whatever out in the desert outside Las Vegas so we ran a program with A-10s with a gun installed and with the current ammunition as it was going into production she had a very strange sound to those engines very characteristic and to this day every time I hear it I look up. because I know it's my bird we knew what she'd do and she didn't disappoint us and we did a meticulous series of tests attack after attack checking tactics checking burst lengths all these details to see how effective we were against tanks we learned an enormous amount about it the most important thing we learned was that this weapon had unprecedented effectiveness during the cold war the threat of Soviet tanks advancing on Western Europe was at times a very real possibility the Air Force finally gave the production of the A-10 the go-ahead it was now ready to face a specific enemy with its highly accurate weapons delivery platform it was the ideal machine to defend against Soviet armored supremacy.
The first A-10 arrived at Davis Monson Air Force base Arizona in October 1975. Immediately christened the Warthog the A-10 was admired for its simplicity and ruggedness rather than its good looks it's kind of an ugly only a mother could love is probably the way most of us describe it it's uh it's it's that ugliness is what makes it so tough it's very rugged people can compare it to like a jeep or a hummer or something like that it's thick it's big everything about it is is boxy and it looks very strong and sturdy it's almost guaranteed to bring the pilot back alive but with a top speed of only 420 miles per hour high set twin engines and squared off slab-like wings the A-10 was a far cry from any streamlined jet it's pretty awe-inspiring it was so much bigger than the aircraft i'd flown in pilot training just it felt huge and it felt big getting into it and it was also intimidating just because first time you fly the airplane you're by yourself but it was definitely exhilarating at the same time the single seat cockpit is surrounded by a large bubble canopy to provide all-round vision and a bulletproof windscreen I love single-seat cockpit that's one of the reasons that I was uh enticed by the A-10 no one looking over your shoulder no one telling you what to do you put the aircraft where you want to do it you employ it in the fashion that you want to employ it it's all personal and you are the master I think the first time that was one of the things that surprised me it took itself right off the runway for the most part once it hits the speed it wants to fly it just lifts up in a way and I think it probably has to do a lot with the big straight wing positive camber on the wing it wants to fly the plane reacts to you it's like you kind of strap on the plane itself and it's an extension of you and it flies it has a feel of real stick and rudder the A-10 is known for its tight turn radius so it can turn on a dime you can even look at the ground as you're turning and it looks like you're just turning in space straight wing lets us turn very very tight so even though we're going slow we've got a very small turn radius and we can very quickly move our flight path uh so that we can dodge all those uh the triple AAA and the surface-to-air missiles. but it's the challenge of the unique close air support role that is the main attraction to A-10 pilots flying in an environment where anything could happen at any time.
The mission that we do is not a rote mission you don't come into it knowing exactly every single thing that's going to happen from the time you take off the time you land once you get in the air is where it starts actually unfolding and you have to react to that you hear american voices on the radio screaming because they're taking fire and that there are people dying their artillery can't get the enemy they call in the A-10s flying of the airplane has to become secondary now you're trying to employ the weapon system and that's where it gets complicated we get maps spread out in the cockpit and we're still trying to talk on the radios and keep from getting shot at you know we consider ourselves the last gunfighter that's really out there because when you go into battle and it's a close-in CAS fight the number one weapon of choice of an A-10 pilot is going to be their gun the weapons delivery system incorporates a heads up display or HUD that provides the pilot with the references for flight control and weapons employment it's incredibly accurate for a gun system and uh probably one of the most flexible weapon systems in the world. it's just point and shoot just like you would imagine a revolver in your hand you point it where you want to shoot it you pull the trigger and that's where the bolts are going to go when you roll in and you pull the trigger for the first time you get excited and the adrenaline starts pumping through and it just. .
. I had the biggest smile on my face what a feeling shooting the gun i mean the whole airplane shakes the first time I fired the gun you know i had to come off the trigger because it scared me because I couldn't believe something like that could come out of the front of the airplane. All the flames the smoke this 30 millimeter bullet is the size of my forearm and that smell of gunpowder you get that in the cockpit after you fire the gun and it's just incredible you get a little bit of a high from it I think sometimes it smells like victory but it would be some time before the pilots would be using their gun in anger with the ending of the cold war the mass tank fleets of the Warsaw pact no longer seemed such a threat and the U.
S air force planned to withdraw the A-10 fleet from service by the 1990s but with a serious situation brewing in the Middle East all that was about to change the Warthog was about to play a key role in bringing down one of the most destructive individuals of recent times In September 1980 Iraq invaded Iran beginning one of the longest and most destructive wars of the 20th century after eight years the basic issues dividing the countries remained unresolved in an effort to contain the Ayatollah Khomeini and the spread of Islamic fundamentalism the West backed Iraq Saddam Hussein the Iraqi dictator began to build up a formidable war machine bolstered by the Soviets and the West creating the fourth largest army in the world with over 4 000 tanks on August the 2nd 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait for 15 years the A-10 had awaited the chance to justify its place in the Air Force inventory for the Warthog it was now make or break time when the first Gulf War started and our squadron deployed down there approaching that time period the Air Force was considering getting rid of the airplane it wasn't until the Gulf War came around we proved the fact that we are a capable CAS platform when war broke out on the 16th of January 1991 there was an urgent need for a missile launching tank buster the A-10s were committed to combat for the very first time back then you know we had nobody with combat experience except for a few of the very senior leadership that had flown in Vietnam so a lot of people weren't sure what to expect deployed to the Gulf to back up coalition ground forces A-10 squadrons were launched on Iraq's thousands of tanks in the mother of all battles first day i'll never forget that feeling it was like wow this is the big game you know you're all pumped up adrenaline's flowing you know let's go you know you go in we hit a target and I remember looking down and going what's all that glittery stuff down there sure enough it was you know them shooting whoa we're shooting at us that's when it kind of hit you you know this isn't just training anymore the way that I saw the Iraqis working is if they knew we were going to hit something they moved it and they played lots of shell games and it's kind of like a you know where they hide it now by February the coalition Air Forces appeared to be dominating the skies and the A-10 was seemingly invincible and we're feeling pretty confident you know if you survive your first 10 combat missions your chances of surviving the war pretty go up significantly Major Rob Sweet was on his 30th mission for Desert Storm on the 15th of February he was the wingman in a two-ship mission launched deep into Iraqi airspace it was a little far into bad guy land for an A-10 it was about 100 miles past the border where good guys were and my flight lead he was obviously a lot more experienced and wiser than i was was a little concerned about the mission with the Iraqis ammunition running low Saddam's forces were being more selective about their targets and seeking to maintain a higher strike rate so we said all right well we won't hang out as much and target we'll take two three passes then we'll leave go somewhere else there's a formation of tanks in a circle about three miles in diameter no craters anywhere and we were kind of aware that maybe these reply with dummy targets Sweet's flight leader rolled in to take a closer look at the target and then cleared his wingman in for Sweet what began as a routine mission was about to turn into his worst nightmare as I'm coming off sure enough comes a SAM well whoa, that ain't good but if you see it you can beat it so I saw it put out some **** fire I kind of pulled around it and uh and it missed sure enough but a guy who was close in fact that was as close as I'd ever been coming to getting hit by anything so I went from being whoa that scared the living daylights out of me to losing my professionalism somewhat and getting really pissed off at this guy for scaring me so uh he was going to die for for doing it. as I was rolling in I mean I felt about a bang about the airplane and went uh ooh that isn't good and I looked back and I didn't like what I saw most of my right wing was gone it was on fire I was thinking to myself okay bad hit bad hit but there's still some wing on there and I should be able to fly it out of there the A-10 is pretty rugged the Iraqi missile which would have destroyed most other fighters seriously crippled the A-10 the plane enters a steep spin slash spiral starts spiraling on down I'm throwing switches trying to recover i'm yelling agh yeah I can't recover and then I start to panic and I remember just seeing a desert getting coming up like this I don't get out. the Aces II ejection seat is a fully automatic catapult rocket system once ejected the parachute automatically deploys I'm coming down in my parachute and i see my tent hit the ground and that was kind of disturbing as Wweet hit the ground he was seized by Iraqi soldiers you know they were on me before I even had a chance to roll over and then they it was their chance to get some payback and so I got the crap beat on me basically taken away to a command bunker he was interrogated I thought I was going to get shot at any moment you know it took me about three days to figure out hey they weren't going to just arbitrarily execute me.
I was worth something to them propaganda or intelligence or something In March major Rob Sweet was eventually released as part of the prisoner release program this is what I found out what happened to my flight lead. after i had been shot down my flight lead had been shot down and it turns out he never got out lucky to be alive he spent four months recovering from his ordeal. If I would have been flying any other fighter when I was hit by the SAM and it was a bad head I'd be I'd be dead right now but despite this the aircraft proved more versatile and better able to survive over enemy territory than anyone had expected during the 40-day conflict the A-10 force destroyed 987 tanks 926 artillery pieces 1 355 combat vehicles, 10 fighters on the ground and two helicopters shot in air-to-air engagements the Air Force's ugly duckling earned a new nickname the Tank buster the result confounded all those who had questioned the need for a dedicated ground support aircraft flying a staggering 8500 sorties A-10s were responsible for more than half of Iraq's losses of military equipment in operation Desert Storm Tragically this remarkable record was marred by a number of incidents in which coalition forces were mistakenly attacked by A-10s now there was an incident yesterday in which an american A-10 inadvertently fired on two of our infantry fighting vehicles the aircraft was one of several which had been called into deal with an enemy position and the incident itself is of course under investigation nine British soldiers were killed the Air force was adamant that it could eliminate friendly fire incidents what nobody knew was that the next challenge for the A-10 would be in an entirely new and forbidding battlefield Afghanistan.
The A-10 had proved itself a success in Desert Storm but for this aging aircraft to remain integral to the air force attack plan it would have to meet the constraints of an ever-changing battlefield the A-10 got quite a few upgrades no new engines or anything like that more avionics upgrades we were able to incorporate systems that didn't come online the global positioning satellite systems the A-10 was the first fighter to fully integrate with the night vision devices the whole cockpit is is modified to use night vision goggles we've been training with them longer than pretty much any other fighter community and we've gotten very good at it the A-10 was destined for a new mission on September the 11th the war against terrorism began our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes Americans should not expect one battle but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen The Warthog strengthened operation Enduring Freedom by spearheading urgently needed around the clock cover for ground troops in Afghanistan for the crews of the A-10s it was like nothing they had ever seen we arrived in Bagram reported to my commander and I said boss this has got to be the scariest place on earth you really felt like you were in the middle of a combat zone and we were. The A-10 was the ideal aircraft for the Afghanistan battlefield the jet is versatile enough to navigate mountainous peaks and deep valleys while also patrolling and pinpoint attacking its targets iIt wasn't bad flying over the mountainous terrain. The bad part was if I ever had to get out of the airplane there's a lot of snow down there that's not a good place to be going from a nice warm cockpit down into the snow is not an idea that I want to have to fulfill.
The airplane higher altitudes and where we normally would fly just because of the heights of the mountains over there we were able to go places that the other fixed wing assets may or may not have been able to get in very well and we definitely went places that the helicopters couldn't get in around the clock Warthog supported regular and special forces soldiers while combing the mountains of Afghanistan for enemy rocket launch sites and mortar posts as its pilots soon realized every mission would test their training and their wills to the limit. we showed up just past dark and got a brief was handed a set of maps and was told hey there's a lot of ground guys who are in trouble. go out there and do what you do didn't have a whole lot of situational awareness on what was going on in the ground so and when we checked in the radios were just going crazy with guys calling for uh close air support your pulse rate goes up the uh intensity of what you're thinking about goes up you know the adrenaline rush it's a good feeling though and what's nice is you turn your airplane towards the fight and your training takes over so first thing we're looking for is what's the overall situation on the ground and get a big picture view and then move into the area once we get into the area have a pretty good idea of where everybody should be now we'll move from the big picture to the much smaller concentrated area one of the first things I'm going to try to do is look look down and try to find where the friendly position is and if I can't identify him exactly I want to at least narrow down something that I can use as a line in the sand and say okay we can't drop past here because that's where our guys are on entering the battle zone one of the A-10 pilot's main responsibilities is to avoid friendly fire incidents at all costs what we mainly have to help us avoid Fratricide is our radios and our eyes very low tech but i think that's what makes us more efficient yes we have a global positioning system that helps us figure out where we are and we have night vision goggles and find out what's down there but when it comes time to find out where the target is yeah we got to use old-fashioned mark one eyeballs and our hands to think about where that is because without that we couldn't do our mission we went in there the night vision goggles were really hard to use because the sun was had set but it wasn't low enough where we were getting a lot of brightness coming from the West so it was really difficult to use the nvgs there was no moon illumination and we're in this very harsh terrain that I've never seen before a team of observers down on the battlefield work with each pilot to guide the aircraft to its target the terminal attack controller or e-tac works for the army and is responsible for ensuring that the A-10 pilot identifies and attacks the correct target while minimizing the risk to friendly ground forces we pass them a situational update area update on what's going on in the battlefield uh let them know where the friendly troops are or what the situation is of the enemy and uh they kind of give them a heads up of what the threats are in the area we'll pass up all that information now they'll copy it down and they work their little magic in the cockpit the A-10 is linked to the ground commanders by an army radio network which distributes data throughout the battlefield he said hey here's where we are and uh i need you to put some ordnance down 700 meters from us which that was eye-opening and uh so we took that distance and rolled in and put a couple 500 pounds bombs down and it immediately quieted the target area it's kind of like a large dragon breathing fire that's what I could see you know it sounds really loud like a dinosaur really raining lead from the sky like guardian angels the A-10s continue to fly over Afghanistan protecting their friends on the ground until the war against terrorism ends.
but an old enemy was waiting in the wings states like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world. The need for the A-10 would reach its climax in march 2003. Saddam Hussein's horrific regime was reaching fever pitch this time it would take an army with the A-10 in the front line to bring him down.
March 2003 Saddam Hussein's forces were about to come head to head with the A-10 tank buster as it once again prepared to fly over the battlefields of Iraq the coalition forces meant to end the regime of Saddam Hussein for good and the Warthog had come a long way since its last desert battle by the time the second Gulf War the Iraqi freedom comes along pretty much every airplane had been modified to improve the weapons accuracy the AGM-65 maverick missiles are highly accurate carrying warheads specifically for targeting heavy armor infrared imaging guidance enables them to shoot moving targets at night combine these with the already large weapons load and the special laser targeting pods and the Warthog was better prepared than ever for its deadly role in Iraq flying from the sea's Talil Air base in southern Iraq A-10s flew numerous sorties as coalition forces launched one of the greatest military offensives since the Second World War the assault on Baghdad for the A-10 cruise it would be the challenge of a lifetime we're flying up towards Baghdad we're excited to go up there put the hair on the back of our necks was standing up and your heart was beating really fast I actually said a lot more prayers stepping in the cockpit that day there's all those different emotions running through your mind and you're saying please you know let me do what i'm trying to do and do the right thing calling the Warthogs to their targets another essential member of the ground command team the forward air controller or FAC. A-10 pilots take turns to carry out this job using their specialist knowledge of the mission in the air to coordinate with the soldiers on the ground we go to a battalion and we speak Air Force to the army we make sure the no Fratricide occurs uh Air force doesn't shoot the Army. The Army doesn't shoot the Air Force.
Keep them deconflicted but then secondary to that is make sure that those A-10s affect the battlefield for the Army Everyone's talking just trying to get permission uh to actually execute the attack and those sound like simple questions and this sounds like you know pick up phone ask but when you're asking one airplane who's relaying to another guy who's probably uh you know four or five hundred miles away sitting in a room somewhere it takes time and oh by the way every aggressive fighter pilot in Iraq at this point is making the same phone call trying to get permission (radio chatter) The FAC is the A-10 pilot's first point of contact on arrival in the area. Part of his role is to provide the pilot with the target coordinates which he does with great efficiency it sounds cold-hearted it's very systematic you know they tell us the targets we find the targets we kill and we report it's killed next target and it just goes next target next target. On arrival over the battlefield the A-10 pilot often uses basic technology to locate exactly where the target is in pilot Eric Yaimorza's case an Iraqi missile site i went down with the binoculars and was searching the target coordinates the six missile launchers weren't where they were supposed to be so it took me a little while to search the area the Iraqis had moved them probably about a half a mile to a mile away you know i'm thinking to myself okay i don't know if that radar operator sees me with that missile and but I see the target next to it and it was just an awesome feeling your focus then all of a sudden is into this one little area is what you're looking at as you roll down pilots called to shoot or when you roll in to employ that's it the whole world melts into this this little area.
And I was able to lock this thing up and fire that missile and it came screaming off the rail. from over 17 thousand feet the long range 300 pound launch and leave maverick missile travelled to its target for yahi mauitz the seconds seemed to go on forever I'm waiting and Im thinking oh man the missile went stupid you know it went flying into Iran it should have hit by now and uh I'm like oh man I'm in trouble it just felt like an eternity it is surreal you're so far up it's hard to hear anything on the ground you're so used to hearing the jet it's like the white noise of having a fan in the background but then all of a sudden boom I mean it's a massive explosion and it was totally elation. now I know I got him.
you pull off get a little more altitude and then turn back and take a look and it's a little fire show for you It's just so professional it's unbelievable. there's not a lot of hooting and hollering and you know it's not like top gun people screaming I mean it's it's war and people are dying and everyone knows it you know we're sitting on the edge of our seats concentrating that we don't get shot down for once and then that we don't hurt the wrong people going in there I said i have two objectives one zero Fratricide. two affect the battlefield and they were in that order .
