A-10 vs. F-35: The Air Force's Latest Budget Bungle
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/a-10-f-35-air-force-budget
The plan is bound to be controversial. Imagine an unstoppable commercial Learjet with a full-automatic cannon in its nose and an iron bathtub surrounding the cockpit. That gives you some idea of the A-10's appearance and performance. Nicknamed the Thunderbolt (though most salty service members call it a Warthog, since that nose cannon kind of looks like a snout), the A-10 was developed in the Cold War to fly low and slow and destroy Soviet tanks. After 9/11, war planners realized the A-10's close-air support capabilities made it an ideal tool to defeat insurgents, too; by 2010, 60 of the planes had fired more than 300,000 rounds of ammunition in combat over Iraq (as well as flown a handful of propaganda-leaflet drops), with an 85 percent success rate [PDF]. The plane has done equally well in Afghanistan and Libya.
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But more than that, the A-10 gives the US an enormous bang for its buck, and a decent environmental deal to boot. It boasts large-surface-area wings and turbofan engines, like commercial airliners, that are much more fuel-efficient (and slower) than supersonic military turbojets. The military even began using biofuel to power the A-10 two years ago. At max power, the A-10's engines are at least five times more fuel-efficient than its future replacement, the F-35—which is supposed to be an air fighter and a ground attack plane, but doesn't perform particularly well at either task.
Did I mention that the A-10 is tougher than your usual thin-skinned fighter jet? Here's a picture of one that limped home after a bad day over Iraq:
(This site has a picture with a hole blown out of one
wing and lots of bullet holes in the fuselage. Zim.)
(Article does continue. Zim.)
Mad Poet Strikes Again.
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