{"id":58827,"date":"2025-02-25T21:51:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T20:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=58827"},"modified":"2026-02-25T09:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T08:00:24","slug":"the-operation-of-the-a-10-thunderbolt-ii-attack-aircraft-explained-in-great-detail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/02\/25\/the-operation-of-the-a-10-thunderbolt-ii-attack-aircraft-explained-in-great-detail\/","title":{"rendered":"The operation of the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft explained in great detail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is one of the most formidable attack aircraft ever built in the United States.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/01\/22\/this-was-the-farewell-air-show-of-the-a-10-demo-team-after-four-decades\/\">This was the farewell air show of the A-10 Demo Team after four decades<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/09\/11\/the-terrible-power-of-an-a-10-attack-plane-this-is-what-its-targets-look-like-in-steelgate\/\">The terrible power of an A-10 attack plane: this is what its targets look like in Steelgate<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>Popularly known as the \"Warthog\", <strong>it made its first flight on May 10<\/strong>, 1972 and entered service four years later. The A-10 has the particularity of being <strong>an aircraft developed around a rotary cannon: the powerful GAU-8 Avenger<\/strong>, made up of seven 30 mm caliber tubes. This cannon is mounted on the front of the fuselage, making the A-10 <strong>an excellent tank destroyer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54351017848_8892ba9783_5k.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54351017848_5439847549_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>715 A-10s were built between 1972 and 1984.<\/strong> They have generally served in close air support missions. Their sole operator has always been the United States Air Force (USAF), which still operates them. According to their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airandspaceforces.com\/app\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Almanac2024_Fullissue_V11.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Almanac 2024<\/a>, <strong>there are 261 A-10s still in operation:<\/strong> 141 in the USAF, 66 in the Air National Guard (ANG), and 54 in the Air Force Reserve (AFRC). Currently, the forecast is that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2023\/06\/20\/10s-were-saved-retirement-years-congress-may-not-swoop-rescue-time.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the final retirement of the entire A-10 fleet will come in 2028 or 2029<\/a>, <strong>being replaced by the F-35<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54349904292_a669011039_h.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54349904292_960b408425_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This Tuesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@Aitelly\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AiTelly<\/a> <strong>published an excellent video explaining in detail the operation of the A-10<\/strong>, including its armament, the characteristics of its construction and the different elements of its cockpit:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A-10 Warthog Jet Explained #jet\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zHkT0DVFxj8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Photos: U.S. Air Force<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is one of the most formidable attack aircraft ever built in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11546],"tags":[1245,14075,6761],"class_list":["post-58827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-aviation","tag-fairchild-republic-a-10-thunderbolt-ii","tag-gau-8-avenger","tag-united-states-air-force-usaf"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-15 14:38:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}