A-10 from Pope AFB turning onto final at KNPA

[Tom Callahan]

[J.F.]

Its maiden flight was on 10 May 1972. It was first introduced in 1977.
They have built 715 of them at a cost of $9.8 million each. That was the
last reported cost in 1998. There are still 356 in service to date in both
active and reserve status. An awsome bird. I was stationed in Osan Korea
when Suweon AB opened in 1981-82. I remember scores of them coming in to be
statione there.

[Tom Callahan]

I don't know the whole story but the A-10 is being upgraded. They have the
test aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base and the fly here every once in a while
to shoot some landings. The new aircraft has new avionics, better self
sealing fuel cells and a bunch of other stuff. They are one of the best
aircraft we ever built.

At one point the Air Force was going to mothball the A-10 fleet. The army
asked for all of the two seaters to be made into electronic warfare
platforms (to replace the long gone Mohawk). No way that was gonna happen.
Key West Accords call for the army to have little bitty utility aircraft,
not prima stuff. History intervened in the political fight and the A-10s
were needed to Gulf War I and you know the rest of the story.


"J.F." > wrote in message
. ..
> Its maiden flight was on 10 May 1972. It was first introduced in 1977.
> They have built 715 of them at a cost of $9.8 million each. That was the
> last reported cost in 1998. There are still 356 in service to date in
> both active and reserve status. An awsome bird. I was stationed in Osan
> Korea when Suweon AB opened in 1981-82. I remember scores of them coming
> in to be statione there.
>

[[email protected]]

On 17-Sep-2007, "Tom Callahan" >
wrote:

> The army
> asked for all of the two seaters to be made into electronic warfare
> platforms (to replace the long gone Mohawk)

All one of them?
Scott Wilson

[Tom Callahan]

Well, that's the way I got the story. I guess whoever told me the story
thought there was a whole passel of two seaters out there some place. I
guess the Army would have had to take out the gun and put in a seat for the
Electronic Warfare Specialist. Now we are doing it with drones so the point
is moot.


> wrote in message
et...
>
> On 17-Sep-2007, "Tom Callahan" >
> wrote:
>
>> The army
>> asked for all of the two seaters to be made into electronic warfare
>> platforms (to replace the long gone Mohawk)
>
> All one of them?
> Scott Wilson

[Tom Hayden]

Some folks think it's UGLY, but I think it's one of the neatest looking
aircraft ever.

Sort of a US equivalent of the Fairey Gannet in terms of ugly-meets-neat.

Tom

[Bob Harrington]

"Dan Edwards" > wrote in
:

>
> "J.F." > wrote in message
> . ..
>> Its maiden flight was on 10 May 1972.
>
> It was first introduced in 1977.
>
> Not sure how you mean that. I was stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB from
> June 1975 to 9 July 1976 when I was discharged from my 4 year hitch.
> Somewhere around September or October of 1975 they began phasing out
> the A-7D's and brought in the A-10's. I remember that they were a very
> light blue color.

That's interesting... I visited D-M in March of 1977, there were still a
squadron or so of A-7s as well as lots of spanking new Warthogs. My sun-
fried brain recalls the A-10 color as a slightly greenish shade of light
gray, with a more neutral and just a tad darker gray countershading on the
upper surfaces.

Must find slides.

After finding clues...

Bob ^><^

[jc[_2_]]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:14:31 -0400, "Dan Edwards" >
wrote:
<snip>

Dan,
I lived in Tucson in '83-85 and recall the A-10's at DM being a light gray
color. The only A-7's I'm sure about in that time frame were being flown by the
ANG guys at Tucson Intl and they were dark green. Sometime in '85, as I was
leaving, the ANG was just receiving the F-16's. Their CO was just completing
his flight time in the two seater (D model?) and was getting ready to start
flight training for the remainder of his guys. At the time the A-10's did a
lot of runs out to Marana, which is also where the SEALS were doing a lot of
HALO jumps out of C-141's. Intersting stuff. Even had the Shuttle land there
(on the back of 747) at DM to refuel once. I do miss Tucson and if I had the
means, I'd go back there.
Cheers,
jc

[jc[_2_]]

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 08:06:06 -0400, "Dan Edwards" >
wrote:


>Hello JC,
> Sounds like you got to see some interesting things while in Tucson! I
>certainly appreciate your feelings about wanting to go back to Tucson
>because I feel the same. Probably would have stayed if my wife at the time
>had not been home sick for Cincinnati. Doubt that I would recognize it now
>after over 30 years!
>
>-Dan Edwards-

I expect it's still pretty much the same, just a little bigger. It's a fairly
transient type town. Lot of folks go there looking for work after they've heard
how nice it is. Then they find out it's there's not really that much work to be
had, then they leave.

It's also hard for craftsmen to make a living there due to the retiree's living
there. You'd be surprised how many people retire there (the poulation almost
doubles in Sept, between college students and "snowbirds") and then find out
they don't have as much money to spend as they thought... so they do little jobs
on the side. One of many customers I had that was in that boat was a house
painter. He was being killed by guys that had retired and were now painting
houses for "friends" for extremely cheap compared to what he had to charge. He
had a store, two vans and employees to take care of while 'Joe-Blow' who retired
two years ago just had his spray gun and spare time on his hands. All of the
service type occupations suffered from that kind of thing. I was really
surprised to find out how much of it was going on. Even I, as a gun shop owner,
had competition from guys that had FFL's and worked out of their garage.
Between them and the big stores like Wal-Mart and Target, it was a tough
business to be in.

But beyond that, Tucson is a beautiful place to live. Great hunting, lots of
places where you could go camp out and not see anyone else for days... I really
enjoyed my time there. Flying opportunites were fantastic if you had the $$$.
Summers are pretty brutal but we still toughed it out and hunted and camped. Of
course, I was much younger then, I'm not sure how I'd fare these days!
Cheers,
jc