Whether you have gone to an airshow , know about our military , or just like planes , there is a good chance you have heard of the A-10 Thunderbolt . If you are unfamiliar with the A-10 , it ’ s an attack plane used by the USAF ( United States Air Force ) to aid ground forces .
So , what exactly makes this airplane stand out ? The A-10 is very resilient and capable of undergoing severe damage without crashing ; even flying while missing an engine or part of a wing .
The plane is heavily armored and even has protection in the cockpit . The pilots are sitting in a bowl of titanium , for lack of better words , which can protect them from fire coming from below since they are flown so near to the ground . They are famous for having a 30mm Gatling gun mounted on the nose , which can do some heavy damage . Some of the rounds fired by this gun can weigh almost two pounds , which demonstrates just how devastating this plane can be .
This leads to a question I asked after seeing these aircraft , “ Why are they so heavily guarded compared to other fighters ?” I discovered that the A-10 flies significantly more slowly than other fighter planes , with a maximum speed of about 400mph (~ Mach 0.56 ) due to its straight-wing build . Other jets can , on average , reach speeds above 1,000mph , with faster planes like the Lockheed YF-12 going up to 2,275mph (~ Mach 3.2 ).
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