A10 Warthog close in ground combat

[Music] [Music] it starts out as something that you've trained for all your life trying to make a difference the cool thing is there's a temp eyelet on times when the stars align and you're up on that mission where you get to make a difference you get to see the room it's a pretty easy answer to in terms of why are we here number one priority has always seen the guys on the ground the people that we so closely work with the the guy on the ground that's my whole soul in being is that guy on the ground you know he could be an 18 year old guy 18 old kid with a rifle that's all he's got and I'm here to protect him sanitize dogtags ID card left breast pocket beanie can't watch Davis we're connecting flight guides maps DTC's or mills let's see buyers are pedal packs water snacks situation if you guys want to take that cell phones you've got one you can have yours okay signed up one random Friday spring of o3 so right after the Iraq invasion three guys in flight suits walked into the bar on campus and start talking about flying that was a year away from graduating not really knowing what I wanted to do in life and this guy start talking about flying fighters and being a fighter pilot being an Air Force and how awesome it was and it kind of hit a nerve with me if you will [Music] all I got interested in the 8:10 I can still remember it to this day it I was at a hobby store because I like a lot of kids interested in aviation I built a lot of airplane models and this was 1979 I was in high school and went to the hobby store and they had a Revell model of the the for then brand new a10 it had only been operational for a couple of years at that point and I just saw it and I remember I can still remember to this day looking at the the wall of models and just trying to pick what I was going to build next and I saw this the box and the picture I said what in the world is that during about the last month of pilot trainings where you put in for whatever planes you want to fly and I was torn on the f-15e or the a-10 which one I wanted to put number one on my list you know so luckily uh one of the respected IPS in our flight had flown both the a-10 and the f-15e and all he said to me was Mitchell what pastor I wear on my shoulder on Fridays and the patch he always had on was the a-10 so I end up putting the a-10 is number one and I love the mission the thought of the mission at the time and now looking back on and I clearly made the best choice in my life on picking to go to the a-10 and then of course I was blessed and fortunate to get picked up by the Air Force to go fly the a-10 so that's how I am right here [Music] [Music] [Music] I was a first lieutenant I was 26 years old when when Desert Storm kicked off the 26 year old fighter pilot caught the nation's attention a few months ago when he and a partner shot down a record number of Iraqi tanks I just never forget when you looked down and realized that somebody's trying to shoot you down and you've got to kill him first my first full two years in the Air Force it was pretty much a completely Cold War type of mentality our training was all very low altitude it's it doesn't seem that long ago to me but I know talking to a lot of the guys at now you know they're it's been quite a while ago and when you look at the airplane from then to now it's it's pretty amazing the different upgrades and that we've gone through since then the a-10 is the only airframe ever that was built entirely for this mission no come on man they're about to do a good ride you get down let's go buddy come on man [Music] [Music] [Applause] they can't save of the day kid baby there's just nothing that matches the devastation that that gun can can bring [Music] it's an awesome testament to the aircraft I think that the same gun that we used to kill main battle tanks in 1991 is the same gun where we can shoot a single insurgent that's fleeing on a motorcycle or or shooting out at our guys from a from a treeline point is you know the a-10 was built for ground combat okay ground combat has we had the old linear battlefield type but we're going to go fight a bunch of tanks go and load a hunter feet and then we've morphed into a medium altitude precision strike platform because the airplane has been updated and modified to be able to do that sensors are great they're amazing they they enable precision strike they enable us to generate coordinates that that are pristine that are right on the target but that will never replace just you know looking right outside of my cockpit and looking at the battlespace what am I seeing out there big picture you do have this personal connection with the people that we so closely work with the guy on the ground we hear him getting scared they were my favorite freakin roadblock hit North 75 meters we hear him getting excited here we go that day - do I need um you famous favor mark same restrictions we hear the bullets flying we hear him taking cover we hear him breathing hard and it's it becomes a very personal very personal mission especially when when you start hearing about guys taking casualties down there you take that that hits very very close to home nobody ever wants to hear that we care about guys on the ground we do our mission in relationship to guys on the ground we are support element essentially for the army [Music] we care about the guy on the ground I'm not saying air interdiction mission isn't caring about the guy on the ground but it's not tangible you can't really grab the benefits of it right then you're gonna wait a certain amount of time to see its effects air to air how's that about the guy on the ground well you're building air superiority air supremacy correct but is the guy on the ground gonna see it get the tangible benefits of it no close air support is about the guy on the ground combat search and rescue is about the guy on the ground we're joint or a joint airframe and an air force and that's what makes us different [Music] [Music] ok today we're going down to sign a suit we've been there recently so we've got a good lay of the land keep in mind the Spidey's been pretty hot recently and they've had some contact from the same area around Sunday sue even over the recent activity keep in mind the kind of mo we've had recently out of there they've seen the the Taliban commander kind of looking at the objective first doing a quick meeting picking up weapons and route usually there's motorcycles involved you've also got the Taliban commander that they seeked a couple weeks ago so you've got all that stuff going on right there in a spot indeed we're going right into the heat of that so keep that in mind as as we get down there keep your eyes open and stay vigilant all right so our actions on contact near and far ambush return fire look to me will either maneuver it will push through IAD get 360-degree security and clear the danger area and then we'll look to Casa vac in the case of a complex attack we're going to return fire move out of kill zone indirect fire get down look for a distance of directions for me our actions on hull to take an e face out and the marks and rules that we're going to use they're gonna be depending on where we are in the open area spread out as much as you can the bigger we can look in the more intimidating we can look the less likely we're going to take contact as we move down there it's all I've got for your questions all right we're kidnapped zero six one five six one pockets on yesterday as most days we went out on a dismount of patrol south of our fob to a village of spondee basically we got some intel that some bad guys were storing weapons in the building and we had contacted them before we'd run into them before so we went down there to kind of check back up and as we got down into the village we ran into some some sketchy guys it just everything felt weird from the time we got down there there was high tension you could tell by the DNA's body language just antsy pacing back and forth second that up and we we know we spread out let the the pl do his link-up it was just high tension I felt from the get-go [Music] just a lot of a lot of sketchy reports no one had the same same story everyone they're all family they all live in the same compound but no one story matched up unfortunately we weren't able to detain them so as we started to to RTB to head back to the base we got word that the Taliban were maneuvering on us from the south nine to a be advised right now we're picking up and moving back through a spawn day out towards that Ghazni [Music] [Music] even in ergo and hog if I could get you over head of our lead element through responding if at all possible as we were headed back to the base we had to cross about two kilometers of open desert we're definitely in a huge open danger area we got about 500 metres outside of the village and started taking some pretty accurate fire there was no cover I mean there were people trying to find tire tracks to hide to get a little bit of a defilade behind you know in that position the best you can do is spread out gain fire superiority you know and then wait for for some air support our comms were a bit of an issue at the time and so they had a little bit of a struggle but they did have a TENS luckily being pushed down to us I have your position south of the treeline wery quickly responded and working with the jfo on the ground and one of my JTACs were able to get hog on on station quite quickly we are taking some harassing fire at that point [Music] somebody's [ __ ] shootin at us but luckily we had the a-10s on station to come in and do a nice show of force which is always a clincher for the enemy cuz because they know what that entails [Music] [Music] the a-10 has proven itself time and again as being really a nightmare to the enemy just its mere presence alone is enough to get to keep the enemy at bay and in that situation right there again just bringing those guys in quick and fast was enough to push push the enemy away from our forces the ground troops that I work with when they think close air support they think a TENS and I think the reason for that is they almost share the same mentality if you were to say that there's a grunt in the sky it'd be a hog pilot [Music] they're very user friendly I mean any one of these dudes could pick up the radio if I get shot in the face and you know employ those guys are really professional very well trained and if you know you have a random Joe who doesn't know what to do does those guys can pull it from them to win a war you need boots on the ground and to have boots on the ground you need support and you need the right kind of support have boots on the ground and it's the a-10 honestly even sometimes just a sound our just telling the ground command hey it ends on its way or we have aircraft supporting the wing or five mics they ask what it is you say hey we've got a a-10 coming on it's it's it's uh yeah it picks him up a little bit that sound is so distinguishable literally shakes the ground it is amazing you hear at first when it fires and then you hear it echo from the gun in the sky that sound right there just drives 11 Bravo it's nuts it's amazing [Music] hey thanks sir I just [ __ ] my pants it's that sound of corny like freedom but it really is it's just it's the sound of don't mess with me it scares off everyone and shows you or you're in good hands [Music] I think when people 10 20 30 40 50 years down the road look back on it I think people will look at this airframe and it will always be known as an airframe that was some people view it as ugly who'd want to fly that thing but you know what it was an airframe that got the job done it got bombs on target when it mattered most and guys went home to their wives and kids because of the airframe it makes it it's very humbling it's that we are so trusted in and liked by the ground forces I think that's something that I'm very very proud of they love this airplane and and they trust us is the biggest thing I mean when you're shooting last night we just looked at it was between 65 and hundred meters away from the from the friendly guys and for those guys to trust us to do that on a regular basis is it's very gratifying I got the greatest job in the world man I get to fly fighters when when people need me to do my job I had the chance to save lives and make a difference on the battlefield that is the mo when you when you hear the machine guns going off in the background when JTAG screaming the bullets are hitting in his feet and you can hear the bullets pinging off the Humvee that he's hiding behind and then all of a sudden you roll in you know put some rounds down and take care of his problem for him and then you know you can hear the relief in his voice that is the most rewarding and fulfilling thing that I can think of you've got a huge group of experts and what they do with a singular focus and you can't really get that back once it's broken up you [Music]

Channel: David Bailey

Views: 1,568,333

Rating: 4.8597488 out of 5

Keywords: A10 Thunderbolt warthog jet military combat pilot

Id: 0hKgloWQHd8

Length: 21min 31sec (1291 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2017