Why A-10 Landing Gear DOESN'T Retract
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 เม.ย. 2024
- #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #shorts
Music:
Yhello - Lofive
Footage:
US Department of Defense
Note: "The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement."
So basically the A-10 is the plane equivalent of “‘tis but a scratch”
With a freedom dispenser strapped to it
It's been commonly called a "flying tank"
A scratch your wing is off
@@TH-camwatcher3200I've had worse
@@endergem957 you liar
He is right. It's NotWhatYouThink
Literally what I thought
Sorry, I'm half asleep, I don't get it lol waiting on my morning caffeine
@blueninja115 the channel name is "NotWhatYouThink"
All these are "not what we think" because WE ARENT EVER THINKING OF THIS GODDAMN STUFF
He is right. It's *Title Card*
A-10 pilots when 50% of the plane has holes in it. YOU MISSED ME!
And even if they did, he's in a titanium cockpit bathtub 😂
... and now it's _my_ turn, you may experience some discomfort
That moment when you feel a dent appear under your leg and have to thank the engineers on the spot before returning the favor to the enemy's cockpit.
@@xlerb2286
Brrrrt!
@@FairnzeliaBath with blood sunk
It’s literally like they just asked “what could possibly go wrong” and solved almost every answer with the A-10
Actual combatants were asked what they wanted. For instance, the cockpit has extra shielding against bullets.
A-10 be like: Of course there is always something that would go wrong....well anyway
Unfortunately the aircraft really will soon no longer have a role on the battlefield.
While it can take a beating, a modern MANPADS system could down it quite easily after a bomb or gun run.
Simply put: The battlefield the A-10 was designed for doesn't exist anymore.
@@rebelgaming1.5.14 yeah it was damn good while it lasted
@@rebelgaming1.5.14It probably will still see use, if for nothing else a huge morale booster.
Some general in the 60's probably:
"We need a tank that flies"
Everyone on the ground: we need an A10 with tracks
@user-zx8du3ik2j Bro, a tank with that gun would be so scary. It'd have to be big, but anything in the sight would get filled with depleted uranium.
I am sure that thought has been spoken many times since airplanes became part of the military.
@@genespell4340they did planes with rank guns in ww2. They sucked
@@shadynmccord757General Electric wanted to use it in an anti-aircraft role as a competitor to the Sergeant York 😂
Hard to believe it was being drawn up during Vietnam.
A culmination of years of hard lessons
What an absolute unit of a plane
Agree, it's thought out well
an absolutely mid tier to awful unit of a plane*
Its terribly slow and obsolete (the cannon cannot destroy any tank newer than, and including, T-62).
Its basically impossible to use if the enemy has even slightly threatening AAD, and other planes do a significantly better job at CAS. Its also way too expensive to actually upgrade, so it will be shelved sometime soon
@@comradeivan9326it’s the truth, even tho it’s a cool plane it sucks. Thanks for all the info.
except its terrible lol
During the Persian gulf war the F-111 killed significantly more tanks than the A-10 and eventually assumed took over the rule of tank busting all together.
Every time I hear ANY information about the A-10 it makes me more happy and I like that plane even more.
Until you realize that the plane is a flying piece of shit 😔
It makes me grateful not to be an enemy of America 😂
I swear 😂
This aircraft can stop being an aircraft and still fly like an aircraft.
*What a marvelous aircraft*
You're right on the button!
The landing gear also deploy into the slipstream which was intended to help get them down in a case of a partial hydraulics failure.
Yes
There you go I was wondering why it was going up in that direction
That's more what I was thinking it would be.
A friend of mine was an A10 pilot. He had a stroke midflight and went blind. They wanted him to bail out, but he refused to and landed the plane blind!! He regained his sight, but they never let him get back in the air.
ok that needs to be a documentary. even If its a small yt one... id Like to hear the full story
Landed where? Into the woods tearing the plane apart and luckily survived?
@@matto1475 nah radar probably helped with a friend to tell him where he is or there probably was another friendly jet
That is so bad ass.
Probably partially-blind I assume.
What an amazing piece of American engineering
Alexander Kartveli from Georgia, that was part of Russia at the time, was the designer. So it's kind of an amazing piece of Russian engineering.
@@NotExpatJoestill at least you’re not saying Pierre Sprey built it.
@@paulsd9255 Sprey designed the fifth rivet from the end of the port side wing.
@@NotExpatJoe He wasn't "the" designer. He was the lead of a team of designers, and it was designed and built by Fairchild Republic - an American company. So your point is as nonsensical as it is an emblem of your insecurity.
This airplane has more innovations than I will ever make in my life 😂
yes
Landing gear that stick out after retracting have been around for ages though. Since before WW2. It’s not an innovation. And neither is the other feature of self sealing fuel tanks innovative. That’s been around for around the same amount of time.
@@Deuce_and_a_half there's more to the plane than those 2 things.
@@GigaGod89A10 is actually a niche category of airplanes, it suck at dogfights and only useful if you have total air superiority.
@@GigaGod89 well yes I know that but you commented under a video that only talks about those two things so I naturally assumed you were referring to them
Nothing finer than being light airborne infantry and seeing an A10 roll in for close air support!!!
So what does atomized uranium oxide smell like?
@@centralintelligenceagency9003 It smells like victory.
@@scoutdogfsr And cancer, probably.
Wait till he discovers how bad they are at actually killing their intended targets, theres a reason the taliban dubbed the a10 their biggest recruiter.@centralintelligenceagency9003
A10 has an embarrassing friendly fire record.
the A-10 is such a beast
The more I learn about this aircraft,
the more impressed I am with it!
The one comment that I remember being made about the warthog is that it's a gun with a plane wrapped around it.
yep,i remember reading that in a mag and so fell in love with this beast
Awesome! Jack from Iowa
I mean, it was designed around its gun, so it *is* a gun with a jet attached to it
Here's a couple more:
It's killed more troops in friendly fire than any other American aircraft in the history of American military aviation.
It has never had a single confirmed tank kill with the gun.
An A-10 scored the last air to air gun kill in American military aviation.... Against a helicopter.
The vibration from the gun is so severe "on target" is half of the rounds fired landing within a 60' radius of the point of aim. The other half land outside a target area so large you can measure it with buses.
Despite being actively offered to allied nations the US has been the sole operator since the plane was introduced.
The F111 has more tank kills during the first gulf war than the warthog has had since entering service in the 70s.
@@Solnoric . Really? I always thought that it was a very accurate when it comes to being on target. Definitely going to do some research.
You forgot the best thing: The titanium bathtub containing the pilot
Edit: whadafuq is going on in the comments
I hadn't heard of that! Fascinating!
He talked about that a different video
Gotta stay clean.
@@nunya_biznizlol
They’ve mentioned it before. But definitely a sight to behold. You could take a direct hit from the guns of another aircraft and still be okay Inside
Legitimately brilliant design. The kinds of things you don’t think of until the need arises.
One of my most favorite engineering masterpieces💪💪
These should really just be given the the US army. The USAF doesn't want them anymore. They should just let the army have them.
The Army doesn't want them, and has said this on and off the record. They'd have to stand up a bunch of new infrastructure and dedicate a bunch of personnel while integrating it into operations. It would divert money from ongoing projects, money that is becoming more difficult to come by with budget sequestrations, generational weapons changeovers like the replacement of the ATACMS with PrSM, and new warfighting focus on the Indo-Pacific region.
@@JarrodFrates the army should then just make their air corps again like they did before.
@@Eric-lq6yk There is a congressional mandate that prohibits the Army from having anything more than helicopters and light scout aircraft.
@@Eric-lq6yk next thing you know, they'll spin it off into a semi-separate service called the US Army Air Force and history will repeat itself. 😂
Army already has its own aviation capabilities but they're limited and not meant to compete with USAF
The 1947 Key West agreement gave fixed wing aircraft to the new Air Force, and rotary wing to the army. In light of what has been learned, it should be modified to give the CAS mission to the army, and perhaps the tactical Strike mission as well..
A-10 is the reason I am alive today.
Thank you for your service, brother.
@@ThatEffinMonke it was my honor to serve.
Did you ever find the pilot?
Can we hear the story?
Thank you for all you did for us
As a retreating Iraqi soldier heading to Kuwait the A-10 is the reason I am dead today.
Got to experience this marvel of technology with deployed. Saved alot of lives.
Also ended a lot of lives on its own side in friendly fire incidents 🫤
Seriously, A-10 pilots had to look for targets with a pair of BINOCULARS
The A-10 is absolutely terrifying, can't even imagine what they'd replace it with
A-11
That's only the REAR landing gear; the front is REALLY expensive because it needs to come from off-center to get around the giant BRRRRRP gun. The firing barrel position for that NEEDS to be right on the keel line or it would make the plane spin like a boomerang.
Spin like a boomerang? No. Spin enough to make you completely miss the target? Absolutely.
@@PsRohrbaugh....
the gun is off center as well
@@zawadlttv the gun is off center because of how a rotary gun works. There are multiple barrels rotating around a center point. The barrel that's firing is along the aircraft's centerline. 30mm shells produce a lot of recoil, but not enough where being a few inches off center would cause anything more than accuracy issues. The cannon produces 45 kilonewtons of force and fires in 1 - 2 second bursts. Meanwhile, the engines (which are several feet from the aircraft centerline) each produce 42 kilonewtons of force constantly.
But I like boomerang 🪃 💥
For the first time, it's exactly what I think...
I came here looking for this response. Cheers.
That is another reason why this plane is such a bad ass.
One of the coolest planes ever built
the person who come up with this design was using 100% of his brain
this aircraft is very remarkable
the A-10 is made to use its brrrt gun, which is completely outdated and practically useless (it cant even pen t-62 tanks)
@@comradeivan9326 there's a reason why there have been made 1000+ f-35's and only 700 A-10's since their respective development
@@comradeivan9326 Against tanks, but it can easily make infantry shit their pants. It also carries other armaments, like air to air missiles, bombs, rockets and air to ground missiles.
@@AcidoAcetilSalicilico A dozen other planes in the USAF can do that and do it better by not having to spot the target with fucking binoculars
The A-10 has been modernized multiple times it doesn't need to use its gun to take out tanks in Modern Warfare anymore they can use standoff missiles like brimstone Maverick and Jdams an assortment of other different missiles and bombs also laser guided rocket pods the main reason why it's still around it's because it can loiter for a very long time and be ready when it is needed 4 close air support other than some jets that can only stay on station for very short amount of time
That flying gun never ceases to amaze me.
I know an A-10 pilot. He is fabulous, thank you J
The wheels don't fully retract for the same reason the A-10 is beloved by the general public in general: It's military engineering at its finest, with the overarching goal being "make sure it still works even when everything is broken."
Thank you. You have finally described my attitude towards engineering (IANAE).
Never been able to vocalize it before.
Some aircraft are built to avoid taking damage, this thing was built to take the damage and keep going. That’s what happens when you turn a bfg into a plane
Edit: I’m aware the plane is actually a pos
Edit #2: someone asked why I (and others) think it’s a pos. Here’s my response:
they’re campaigning to keep them in service a.) because they like them and it’s a huge moral booster (which I actually believe is a good reason to keep them. Being on the ground then hearing that BRRRT must be comforting knowing it’s not targeting you), b.) they’re making the argument of its former use which is to take down heavy armored vehicles like tanks and APCs. BUT, modern air defense systems developed by the U.S. for the a-10 are not enough to protect it against modern Russian, Iranian, or Chinese aircraft and ADS.
Additionally, it’s responsible for the most friendly fire deaths of any modern aircraft. So I’m all for replacing it, after all it was centered around its gun the GAU-8 avenger THEN the plane was designed around it (which is hilarious, shows the amazing craftsmanship of the weapon itself, and its usefulness if the U.S. puts the RND into developing such a weapon on another plane).
However, the a-10 takes a certain special place in the battlefield that is better filled by multi combat fighters like f-15, f-16, f-18, f-22, and f-35 which are plentiful and do its job arguably better. (At least the same and definitely more precisely).
It should have a replacement, even with the same or a similar gun developed for a similar purpose (mostly destroying tanks and stationary artillery). The a-10 at this point is just outdated.
turning the big friendly giant into a plane?
@@user-et2dx5du7eI guess so?
@@user-et2dx5du7e big f*ckin gun
@@user-et2dx5du7e big fucking gun
With the difference that a bfg can actually do its intended job
What poor sod figured out it can fly with the most damage possible
A whole team of engineers.
Titanium bathtub.
Fighter Mafia, John Boyd, etal.
@@ronski50 Did you know about the Blitzer Bug that they also proposed? It was a lower cost alternative/supplement for the A-10 the way the F-16 was for the F-15. From the descriptions and rough sketches in the book it would have looked like an armored version of the Heinkel He 162.
Me
That Poor Sod was the one who came back home.
That's called "Engineered redundancy"
Many of the same brilliant engineers made the F-15 too, another of aviations enduring engineering marvels that has outlasted all others of its class at 50 yrs of service & still recieving orders.
Most of these features are actually standard since ww2
"Outlasted all others of its class" Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize the US or anyone else aren't using the F-16 or F-18 anymore. You know, the other two jets built at essentially the exact same time and are DIRECTLY in the F-15's "class" in multiple ways?
I hope you dont mean Pierre Michel Sprey because he did nothing. Hindert development of missiles for years. The only thing he acomplished was getting his name attached to some projects.
@@Speedy2619 Pierre sprey, the biggest idiot in aviation
This aircraft is a true feat of engineering.
Worthogs are one of the best planes ever made. Cheap, devastating, armored, badass.
They're literally terrible and known for poor visibility and an underpowered gun that can't kill tanks since the 1970s. Srry
@@jacktraister7853 Listen here Simple Jack!
Its a 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger with depleted uranium rounds ! The only thing getting more penatrated since the 1970's is your mom!
BRRRRRRRRT! 😂 🤣
@@jacktraister7853wdym underpowered gun
@@37catsthe GAU-8 is not that good anymore since the 70s, it cannot destroy modern armoured vehicles and the plane itself is obsolete and has poor precision capabilities leading to one of the highest friendly fire rates in any plane, any ADS would shoot down this plane before it reaches the target too
No matter what when the boys that are out there on the field fighting and things are getting hairy nothing better to hear is those beasts coming and a beautiful burp
A-10: Can i avoid fire ?
Command: No you go in hot.
A-10: What if get damaged ?
Command: We expect you come back to base.
A-10: What if i get damaged very badly ?
Comm: I wont repeat myself. NOW ROLL OUT !
Optimus Prime on the comm.
I used to be TACP in another life. Being able to control these things was such a wonderful life experience. They feel like family. 😊
It's a shame that USAF specialized forces don't get the badass recognition y'all deserve. TACP, Combat Controllers, CWTs, & I guess PJs (kidding PJs!)
@@ShawsOwn It really is.
Anyone having anything to do with that design has a right to take pride in their work. The A-10 is a masterpiece.
You left out the coolest part. Once the problem was fixed, the gear could be extended while sitting on its belly.
This would put the aircraft back on its gear without any additional machinery.
That's impressive
I'd expect it'd still need heavy repairs after a landing like that, though. The nose would likely be damaged, since the nose gear fully retracts.
@@planterion7969 I think it's just meant to get the aircraft back on it's wheels. No doubt many repairs would still need to be done.
The A-10 has a tank build
It's a flying tank!!
no it’s not
A tank build with the damage output of a glass cannon. Sh*ts broken lol 😂
@@hectorortizjr.1652 its a huge flying piece of shit salute to the a10 and all the friendly fire it did hoorah
@@Nik-lf4rw You sound like a hater.
Love that plane! Never ever retire it please
“Why doesn’t the A-10 gear retract?”
A: It does retract
Damn that's epic engineering
And to think they were trying so hard to retire it.
That's because it's made by GE
@@tamparocks Not sure what you mean by "were". Congress authorized its retirement last year. It's just a matter of time now. The only reason they're not already all gone is because the USAF is required to demonstrate that it has something that can fulfill its role, which thus far it hasn't sufficiently been able to do.
These things are loud, ugly, slow, beautiful, awesome, and deadly; I love them. They used to fly over our house all the time when I was a kid. We lived way out in the boonies about 30 miles from an AFB where several A10s were stationed. As a young boy I just remember looking up in awe. Because of our remote location they would get really low. We were cutting wood one time and two of them popped over the horizon. My dad and uncle had 2 chain saws going, and as usual, I was dragging and stacking brush. I didn't hear them coming till they were almost right over us due to the chainsaws, but once they got close enough, they completely drowned out the chainsaws. My dad was still in the military as well (Army and later National Guard) so we also had base privileges so I got to see a lot of cool takeoffs and landings of various aircraft. Good memories!
ugly?! you take that back right now
the A10 was made to treat tanks like a snack and duke it out with fighters while still limping home ready to say "i didnt hear no damn bell, gimme more ammo!"
it's a literal flying tank
So this thing is basically the aircraft equivalent of the "I didn't hear no bell" South Park meme 🤣
You are God damn right lmao
can’t hear the bell over the BRRRRTT
A 'tradition' carried down from B17s
And DC-3s.
It’s not a tradition carried down from the b17. It’s been around for a while.
As a machinist sometimes even I gotta give the engineers a pat on the back lol great idea
Genuinely, looking at the damage these things can take and still fly, is highly reminicent of how B-17s got their crews home back in the day.
I know an ex sas aus guy, he said in Afghanistan, when you heard the a10s flying up the valley it sounded like heaven....
Also that friendlies and enemies alike both took cover when they heard them. Or that if you hear the brrt you're safe as the bullet travels faster than sound
Unless you’re a Brit, then you say your prayers and hope to god that the A-10 pilot peering through his binoculars (no radar) can tell that your tanks aren’t insurgent trucks.
@@paulsd9255You do know they can carry FLIR pods, right? And that the newest ones work in all but desert weather conditions?
There are ways around not having radar.
@@HuntingTarg I’m talking older ones during the British blue on blue era, not the current ones that are per-unit more expensive than an F-35.
This plane it's an engineering masterclass, 60 years old design..... Kudos to our grandfather
Wow, a lot of neat engineering went into that. Self sealing fuel tanks especially, that's really neat.
Can’t believe they’re retiring this beast
The finest close air support aircraft ever built...
It’s actually a tank killer and was not meant for CAS. The plan was to lose the entire A-10 fleet within a few days of tank busting in East Germany.
IL 2 shturmovik in ww2: 🗿
...would probably be something like the IL-2 for prop planes, and the F-16 for jet planes. A-10 doesn't even come close (literally, it'll get shot down before it gets close).
I'd largely agree but only if the situational awareness were vastly improved.
Also The rear fins are designed to protect the engines from missiles.
They shield the heat radiation from the engines to make it harder for IR guided missiles to track. A missile hit to the tail would most likely still take out an engine, it wouldn't care if there was a fin in the way.
Now that is some Highly Available infrastructure.
* Missing a wing and engine. Shots through the tank *
"Alright let's minimize damage by rolling it in"
What I love about the A10 is that the design is literally just “you might get shot down, but you’re not getting shot down.”
It has self sealing fuel tanks? You mean the thing that's been on most US combat aircraft since world war II? What an innovation.
Damn right- this thing has _every_ WWII (and since) innovation!
It's like a Malanois... Ready to go, and you don't want to find out _how_ ready.
They didn't say it was special. They just noted that this aircraft had it. Do you feel special critiquing a youtube video?
@@OnceUponReddit Do you show people your car by telling them, "this is my car, it has airbags"? It's unnecessary information because it's implied
@@davnadz Every innovation except speed, survivability to modern air and surface threats (no BVR capability and MANPADs/SHORAD are becoming prevalent even in insurgent groups which the A-10 is vulnerable to), Payload (beat by F-15E which can carry more bombs plus 4 AMRAAMs and 2 fuel tanks), loiter time (again F-15E, those tanks make it last a long time), and modern datalink capability (its taken billions of dollars over the past 30 years to get the A-10 to the targeting capability of an early 2000s F-16). And while on the topic of cost, the A-10 is more expensive to run per flight hour than the F-16 since about 2010, when the A-10s were coming out of that refit and immediately went into service life extension.
The A-10 is like a 15 year old Malinois. Ready for a fight but you should really expect it to die very quickly if it actually gets into one. (And to address the "well its a CAS plane" argument. No, it performed 20% of CAS missions in the GWOT and had more losses and more friendly fire incidents than the other aircraft performing the other 80%... combined).
The thought that went into this aircraft is incredible.
Normal day you hear something:brtrtrttrttrtrtrttr oh hell noo
Average British tanker in the splash zone because the A-10 pilot saw in his binoculars what he thought were insurgent trucks
They have tried everything to kill it and it still fought back.
It‘s essentially a piston era aircraft that’s been converted to jet power.
What's funny is that the A-10 is also called the Thunderbolt II. The first Thunderbolt was the P-47 which is actually faster than the A-10.
Not at all
@@xyzaero9656 I don‘t mean literally but doctrinally it is essentially a piston aircraft.
I was in a US Army Pathfinder Detachment when I was deployed. We were twice sent out to recover ordinances that A-10s dropped outside of Kandahar because the aircraft had engine failure. Protocol dictated that they drop their ordinance to raise the odds of surviving a crash landing.
We took helicopters out to the coordinates provided by the pilot, found the dropped and inert ordinances, had our EOD dude rig up some explosives and sat back and watched the BOOM.
Both of the aircraft made safe and successful landings on base because the A-10 is a beast.
That's interesting.... Thanks for sharing and serving..... I always wondered if the A10 ejects the spent brass shell's to the ground? I have one spent 30mm shell as a friend contracted to the manufacturer..... I don't think I'd wanna be within a 100 meters of where one of those shell's hit..... I think my friend told me 85 buck's a pop for that particular shell he gave me some two decade's ago..... A10 and Apache like up to 625 rpm? Idk?..... That's a lot of lead I suppose.....
@@markbouldin6513 It doesn't eject any brass. The reason one might think is because of the risk of casings being ingested by the engines. While that is indeed a risk, the primary reason why the casings are retained is because the loss of that weight would impact the plane's center of gravity too much. So instead, the casings are cycled right back into the ammo drum, so as to minimize that effect.
@@hux2000 Hey Thank's and my apologies for not searching it.....
To make excuses I had a vision of some poor barefooted Middle Eastern folk's pushing wheelbarrows in axle deep hot sand collecting all that brass.....
You know, these war machines are so impressive. The engineering alone is enough to marvel at. It makes me wonder what we could build that actually helped people
That's actually exactually what I thought. It's been the case since WWII that many planes were fitted with gear didn't go alm the way up for belly landings.
Unfortunately, you thought wrong. They do that to save space.
The f’n goat. Is and will forever be my favorite war plane of all time. It’s a tank that happens to fly.
It’s been 50 years since I’ve flown a Douglas DC-3 but its wheels don’t fully retract either. In fact, in a gear up landing the •brakes still work!• Amazing.
That’s exactly what I thought. I didn’t even know this beforehand, but it was my first thought when you said they didn’t fully retract.
At the end, the hog suffered a massive cannon malfunction. The failure caused it to accidentally jettison the canopy. That pilot literally kept the wings on that pig. When pigs fly, I guess. 😂
And Madonna said when she fell on her rump... It was part of the Choreography 😂😂😂❤
I remember that from a detailed toy from my childhood. worked just like the real thing, you could scoot it around with the landing gear up.
A10 goes brrrrrrrr, Infantry: yay
I'm usually like "brah, that was exactly what I thought!" But in this case I'm more like "surprised Pikachu" (why yes, I _am_ down with the kids lingo)
My town sits under a flight route; it's always a treat to see these flying. The engines make a very distinct sound, so you know they're near.
Ah so the reason the A-10 Warthogs gear doesnt fully retract is actually exactly how i thought lmao
Fun fact, when brought into operation, the A-10 had the largest HUD display of any US tactical aircraft. The Kaiser HUD was larger display than F-14/15/16/18 HUD's.
The military keeps these in service due to their popularity with the public, only. People love this plane so much that they can't get rid of it
Warthog design engineer here: Its actually not what you thought eirher. It had everything to do with the wing shape. If we had made the wing large enough for the wing to fully enclose the wheel it wouldnt have been able to fly the flight prifile we wanted.
Its rare to have an aircraft with a gear that retracts into the wing instead of the body.
When I was a kid I had a MS-DOS game called A-10 Tank Killer, and that's what opened my eyes to awesome military aircraft.
So when you say "it's not what you think", it was exactly what we all thought...
"Why the A-10 Warthog's wheels don't fully retract is not what you think." Turned out it was exactly what I was thinking.
Honestly that's a genius idea. A-10 just keeps proving why it's such a hardy aircraft
“Its not what you think” *says exactly what I thought*
“The reason is not what you think” proceeds to say exactly what I thought it was
Beautiful plane of genius design. I used to work at Davis-Monthan Air Base in Tucson where the Warthog was based, and they flew with what seemed an impossible minimum of speed, as if they were walking through the sky.
The A-10 is literally a flying tank
F-35= Jet with a gun A-10= Gun with a jet
That thing is an absolute monster
It’s just so redundant, brings a tear to my eye
The A-10 just shrugs off everything and is like "what else you got?"
"It's important to minimise damage when" *checks notes* "the A-10 has been too damaged to lower gear."
"is not what you think"
Literally the first thought I had when they said it doesn't fully retract.
That is retraction. As a licensed aircraft mechanic i can confirm it has retracted.
“Not what you think” but actually exactly what you think
Self repairing fuel lines got me
This is a case of the reappearance of an old safety feature. Retractable gear was new technology in the early 1930s -- new but unreliable. Consequently, many aircraft designed in the 1930's were designed with semi-retractable gear which allowed for safer emergency landing situations. Among these aircraft were some of the true classics of aviation, such as the Boeing B-17, the Douglas C-47, and the Douglas TBD Devastator.