[Overpaid Slacker]

A-10s are the ugliest, coolest thing in the air. I grew up near Hancock AFB -- 174th TFS "Boys from Syracuse" -- and as part of an Aviation Explorers group, I was "Huey"ed up to Fort Drum to watch the 174th and some A-10s from CT perform missile, bomb (lob-toss is awesome) and gun practice.

Suffice to say, the cannon is unbelievable; when they turn downrange for the approach, they engage (what sounds like) the engine starters -
(perhaps to prevent the stall Nader referred to, perhaps to keep the gun exhaust from choking an engine if the pilot executes a high-g turn) so the normal turbofan scream becomes a shriek right before the gun fires. At the other end of the range there are some spectacular shows as the rounds hit the earth -- they used acoustic targets as most hard targets didn't last very long under the withering rain of depleted uranium. Then the A-10 would just dance into a knife-edge and get the hell out of Dodge, w/ the condensation sheeting off the wings. Truly awesome.

It was a sad day when the 174th went to F-16A2s; though when they did 105% scramble take-offs it seemed as though the sound from those bastards would shred the atmosphere itself (pschrup is right, you can't overstate how loud these things are, but it's the sound of freedom, baby) -- and they absolutely leapt off the ground in about 100'.

For other reasons, I got to play in the A-10 simulator, which wasn't so cool -- it wasn't on hydraulics, so to stimulate movement, air bladders under the seat cushions inflated/deflated. So, in any significant turn, your body is tilted and the simulator is still vertical. Very odd. The B-52 simulator at Griffiss AFB was hellacool.

JP