New Life for Warthog “Flying Tank?” – US Air Force A-10s Visit Philippines

A-10 Warthog: The Indestructible Close-Air Support Legend Lives On

The “Flying Tank” A-10 Warthog’s 30mm cannon is armed with 1,150 rounds and fires as many as 70 rounds per second, a rate of fire and lethality that explains one of many reasons why the powerhouse aircraft has earned a permanent resting place in the hearts of ground soldiers. 

This cannon, which aligns in a straight-ahead firing configuration parallel to the nose of the fuselage, allows the aircraft to simply lower its front and “blanket” and “smother” an enemy ground area with lethal and suppressive fire from the air. 

A large part of the aircraft’s well-known and celebrated durability is not only due to its tank-like titanium hull but also a result of its built-in redundancy, an aspect of the plane strongly supported and enabled by the 30mm cannon, a former A-10 pilot told Warrior years ago. 

An A-10 Thunderbolt II prepares to take off from Al Asad Air Base, Iraq to provide close air support to ground troops in Iraq. The 438th Air Expeditionary Group A-10 jets perform 10 sorties daily–900 in this last four months. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Cecilio M. Ricardo Jr.)

“So when I lose all the computers and the calculations, the targeting pod and the heads up display, you can still point the aircraft using a degraded system at the target and shoot. We are actually trained for that,” former A-10 pilot Lt. Col. Ryan Haden, 23rd Fighter Group Deputy, Moody AFB, told Warrior in a previous interview several years ago.

The A-10 Warthog is truly something special for many reasons. 

A-10 Flies Through Enemy Fire

As Haden explained, if most aircraft systems are damaged or even destroyed by the enemy, the A-10 can still slowly hover above ground combat and use line of sight to keep firing the cannon while taking small arms fire.