WT Forums

Hey everyone, so a little background on why I am here. I am a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA. I will be comissioning in the AF in May and have been selected for pilot training (report to Columbus May '09). I am taking an aircraft design class in which you theoretically design an aircraft basically using material from the aero classes I have taken throughout school. Since both my partner and I are in AFROTC we decided to design the next generation CAS aircraft with the A-10 as the base.

So now for the questions. In order to do some of the calculations I was looking for a few specs that are a little more difficult to find.

1) How much fuel does the A-10 carry internally?
2) What is the typical flight pattern for a CAS mission? for example the flight path is characterised with takeoff, climb, cruise, loiter and weight drop, cruise, descend, land & taxi. Obviously the outgoing and return is the same what I was wondering was during the combat stages. Do you typically stay at fairly low altitudes and engage targets as they appear? Do you loiter at a higher altitude drop in on a target then climb and loiter again? Thanks
3) What are some specs which you believe are the weakest point that could be improved? within reason

Thanks for your help, I am sure you will be hearing more from me.

-Kyle

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Kyle Gauthier
USAF ROTC Det 340
Pilot Select '08

Greetings to you too. Have you tried the intraweb?

http://www.fas.org/main/home.jsp
http://www.globalsecurity.org/
http://www.military.com/

Some of the other information you seek is of a more sensitive nature. I would recommend you find a face to face contact that can verify directly your affiliations and may point you toward some other sources of information. Sorry to be somewhat cryptic, but you are unknown and some of the questions you have asked are sensitive if not more classified.

Others here may answer some of your questions to a degree, but cosider the point of view. This is your first post, you are unknown and asking some questions about a subject matter near and dear to the members here. Not to mention we are at war and some of these kinds of things are just not appropraite in an open forum.

If you are in AFROTC, then you should've had an OPSEC briefing or class at least once by now and have some feel for what I'm saying.

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Just give me some ammo, a little water.....and some chips if you got 'em

I definitly understand what you mean, I wasn't sure how much some of these specs were still considered secret. I have done some searching around and these are just a few of the things I couldn't necessarily find. Thanks for your help though, if anyone knows the internal fuel capacity at least that would be very helpful for now. I have found empty weight numbers on the internet but I can't figure out if they are including fuel or not. That estimate is giving me around 6000 lbs...

Would it be any better to contact any of you privatly? I believe they have A-10's still down in Hartford but I only have this class for the next 6 weeks and very little time to dedicate to driving the 2 hours to chat with them. I apoligize if this comes across as annoying and thanks for your help again.

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Kyle Gauthier
USAF ROTC Det 340
Pilot Select '08

Questions 2 and 3 won't get answered on this forum, but if a mod gives the OK, I'll give you all the numbers for question 1. IF a mod gives the OK. BTW your estimate is wrong.

Question 1 is far from classified and I don't know why you couldn't find it: 10,650lb IF it's JP-4

Wont discuss #2

#3 is fairly obvious and well documented in such industry sources as Janes Defense. Since it's inception the A-10 was designed for survivability, one reason for the engine pods to be separated is that if one engine caught fire the other engine would be safe. However Fairchild went one better, they made the engine pods EJECTABLE!!! If an engine catches fire and the fire begins to spread to the fusalage the pilot can eject that engine pod entirely off the plane!! The problem though is the ejecting sequence. To eject an an engine a small handle under the seat must be pulled, once for the left engine twice for the right engine. Do you see the problem? YES! if you are trying to pull it twice for the right engine you would naturally pull it once first thereby ejecting the left engine as well! Fairchild engineers were never able to come up with a fix for that one as far as I know.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Boomer, play nice.

Kyle, Boomer's answer to #3 refer's to Jane's statement about ejectable engine pods..about as accurate as Bill Clinton's deposition about Monica Lewinsky.

OC

boomer, boomer, boomer...your fishing line is showing!

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

You are too much Boomer!

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Slow is Fast, Fast is Slow
Violence may not be the best option, but it IS an option

This is an A-10 site, Hawgs don't "do" nice lol

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

haha, cool thanks guys. One of my cadre used to fly, not the A-10 but I am going to see if he might know the general flight profile of a CAS mission.

The A-10 is in the top 3 on my wishlist of what to fly assuming all goes well until and during UPT. I like what I hear about the attitude in the A-10 units not to mention its a pretty BA plane. I will be around the forums, thanks again for your help, it is hard sorting out some of the different numbers you find around the internet now and I figured going straight to the people who fly em would get me a more accurate number.

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Kyle Gauthier
USAF ROTC Det 340
Pilot Select '08

These numbers are using JP8, what we currently fly with:

Internal Fuel Tanks
10,924 lbs - 1,630 gal

External
12,060 lbs - 1,800 gal (That is for three 600 gallon tanks. Tanks are only used during to cross the ocean, not during combat sorties (they did fly with 1 ext tank during ONW, but that's not common) The A-10 normally uses 1 600 gal tank for cross country sorties, occasionally 2.)

Total
22,984 lbs - 3430 gal

Boomer, you didn't go there... WOW

just goes to show you can learn something new everyday

Somebody actually posted the page from Janes, but I don't think I saved it.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Lets see now,

You can get a copy of Don Logans book \"Republic's A-10 THUNDERBOLT II\"
or Pete Smiths book \"Fairchild Republic A-10 THUNDERBOLT II\" and then you can get the \"GULFWAR AIR DEBRIEF it actually shows you their \"Thinking\" of a CAS sorite.
Read \"Warthog\" flying the A-10 THUNDERBOLT in the Gulfwar reading the pilots accounts will tell you more then you ever wanted to know about flying a \"CAS mission\".

Their is so many books that are there that basically tell you everything except \"Not to Throw the Piddle Packs at the Crew Chief\" unless you want to not fly for a few days

So Good Luck,

And really Just Copy an A-10, Paint it EURO-1 with 23rd TFW Teeth and hang a SHIT LOAD OF WEAPONS ON BOARD.

Thats the Ultimate CAS Jet.

not that I'm bias

Goose

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\"Live Free Or Die\"

From the \"Photo\" section on the main page here: http://www.a-10.org/photos/p.asp?FileName=whog15a%2Ejpg Basic/generalized attack profile. Obviously edited/modified when planning an actual sortie based on local terrain and mission profile. Like I said, generalized and not too specific for a reason. The \"jettison\"-able engine nacells is also mentioned Construction/design wise they were positioned high so as to lessen the ingestion of sod or other FOD from it's intended use at unimproved facilities. The YA-9 would've been a mud puppy of a whole different breed if it had to emmulate conditions shown in vintage footage of the Me-262. Never would've been capable, IMO.

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Just give me some ammo, a little water.....and some chips if you got 'em

Cool those sources help. The project is interesting to be able to do but at the same time is obviously very far out from what would be required designing an actual military aricraft, as far as packaging all this stuff. Mainly our \"design\" is looking at ways to improve the aerodynamics and through that increasing capabilities, the class is also not structured for all the extra considerations for the military but we didn't want to design a boring civilian jet.

Basically our design is going to look a lot like the A-10's main body with various aerodynamic changes to up the top speed a bit and maintain low speed manuverability. The biggest change will be the engine setup. It will still be dual engine but one engine will be mounted within the body scooping up air from over the wings to try to stay in clean air. The 2nd engine will be mounted similar to the current aircraft except straight up. The 2nd engine will be the upgraded TF34-GE-400A, (9,275 lbs of Thrust) and the engine in the fuselage will be a F118-GE-100 (off the U-2 and B-2 with 19,000 lbs of thrust). The F118 is only slightly longer and a little skinnier making it fit actually fairly well and the engine has pretty close to the same specific fuel consumption.

Anywho yea its fairly interesting and pretty radical. Figure we had to entertain ourselves somehow with the class. By the end we have to have drawings and specs for it and everything so I will let you know how the silly thing turns out. Thanks again

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Kyle Gauthier
USAF ROTC Det 340
Pilot Select '08

If you can get your hands on a copy of X-Plane, you can incorporate some of your ideas into a flight sim-able flight model to test what works and doesn't.

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Just give me some ammo, a little water.....and some chips if you got 'em

Boomer that was way over the top. But you almost had me believing it.

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YGBSM !

Now, has anybody ever heard of a secret plane called I think Aurora or something like that LOLOL

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

You can tell him whatever you want, but one of us mods will have to kill you.

Both.

another easy question I can't seem to find. What is the typical cruising altitude? Not in combat or anything but simply going from one place to the other most efficiently.

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Kyle Gauthier
USAF ROTC Det 340
Pilot Select '08

About 35ft.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Aurora, What Aurora?

Never Heard of it? Must me a \"UFO thing\",
This Board is totally \"Transparent \" in its operations \" and WOULD NEVER anyone or pass along
FALSE information that causes Governmental power's to investigate, look into or a \"TINFOIL\" Hat conspiracy to erupt on the Web.

You can TRUST US! We know WHATS BEST.

I still have my Copy Boomer

Goose

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\"Live Free Or Die\"

good times

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.