On 24 Sep 2003 08:29:47 -0700, (Kirk Stant)
wrote:

One hears (and reads about) the supposed dislike of the A-10 by the
"Air Force". I wonder where it all started - I never heard anyone
badmouth the Hog during my 20 years in, and everybody who flew it
loved it. The bull**** about "the brass hates it because it isn't
supersonic" is really an insult to the professionalism of the Air
Force. Anyway, the AF wanted the A-10 to get a big piece of stopping
the WP in the Fulda Gap, as well as do CAS (which has always been an
AF mission). In no way was it "forced" on the AF. Now, as a single

Kirk, you must read Campbell's book The Warthog and the Close Air
Support Support, from Naval Institute Press. He was an A-10 pilot (and
A-7s for the Navy before that!) and he certainly lays out the case
that only the power of the U.S. Congress forced the A-10 down the
throat of the Air Force brass, and that the brass spent the next 20
years trying to get rid of it.

Even the supersonic b.s. seems to be pretty well established--thus the
F-16 as the "successor" to the A-10. (The F-16's main virtue as a CAS
aircraft seems to be that it can fly supersonic if it's not carrying
any CAS stores

Of course the pilots loved it. It's a great plane.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...f=nosim/annals

Not my arguments! Campbell's.



all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

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