Weekday Wings: A-10 Warthog "Steel Rain" 1/5

designed for ground support the a-10 warthog is simple and rugged but in the Persian go commanders send warthog pilots against the most lethal threats in modern war I don't know if scared the right word but certainly living in a state of higher awareness if you will January 19 1991 two days after the air assault against Iraq is launched Saddam Hussein rains down Scud missiles on Tel Aviv it is part of an effort by the dictator who incite Israel into entering the war is widespread many fear that the Iraqi scuds will carry biological or chemical warheads the prospect of poison gas being used against a nation born of the Holocaust is too much to bear but if these railings enter the conflict the arab states united against iraq will pull out of the war and the threadbare us-led coalition will fall apart the entire scud crisis was something that drove politicians crazy they drove planners crazy the missile is not a great day accurate missile it's kind of like a v2 from World War two that the Germans built not much different than that really but the potential terror capability of this weapon demanded me go get but unfortunately there were many many cardboard tubes out there painted look likes cuts well are you going to send a 60 million dollar airplane against something that might be really just nothing but cantar v that was the problem instead the Air Force sends the 1.5 million dollar Fairchild Republic a 10 called the Warthog this mean ugly plane has long been the brunt of jokes throughout the service with a top speed of 375 knots the hog is very slow supersonic fighter jocks like to say that the eight ins airspeed indicator is a calendar and that the aircraft takes bird strikes in the rear but compared to modern fighter jets it is an incredibly rugged machine just 130th the cost of an f-16 the warthog can absorb fire that would bring down a squadron of Falcons when pilots climb into the cockpit they are surrounded by a titanium bathtub that in early tests withstood direct hits from 57-millimeter anti-aircraft guns the Hogs twin-tail serves to mask the infrared signature of the engines and provides great low-speed control it is the consummate close air support weapon the Hogs 2g ETF 34 engines are mounted above the wing so that when taxiing on primitive runways they do not suck up rocks or dirt external to the fuselage they are built so that if one is hit it can burn fall off and the hog will still fly the aircraft is built around a vicious 30 millimeter cannon that fires depleted-uranium rounds able to penetrate enemy armor from up to two miles away hog pilots are trained to cater to the needs of ground troops they are the closest thing the Air Force has to GIS and a cockpit and in recent years army leaders have made clear their desire to command the warthog as their own in an air force fascinated by high-tech fly-by-wire technology the warthog has always been the bastard child in fact when general Horner's own son chooses to fly hogs his father claims that the boy has died of brain damage just months prior to Desert Storm the a-10 was headed for the chopping block in the Arizona desert matter of fact it had to be shoved down the air force's throat to some degree when the 18 was proposed the air force really didn't want it because it wasn't a gimmick box if you'd stuff all these goodies into the air force likes the high-tech option and they like complex gear the a-10 is certainly not complex it's as simple straight easy to fly rugged despite their questionable status when the crisis in the Gulf breaks out hogs are some of the first u.s. warplanes ready and able to head to Saudi Arabia squadrons of eight ins are rushed from Europe and America to the kingdom's northern desert strips if a rocky troops push on from Kuwait towards the Saudi oil fields the Hogs will be sacrificed until additional forces can be rushed to the theater as we parked I remember popping my canopy and I immediately got hit with a blast of hot air so I started looking around trying to figure out whose jet wash you know who had their airplane parked and was blowing their exhaust over my cockpit and I couldn't find anybody that was just the the wind and the heat is here and it just happens to be temporary at home till we can get a really nice tent as summer gives way to fall it becomes apparent that the Iraqis are content with defending occupied Kuwait for the next six months nearly two hundred warthog pilots will make a home in the Saudi desert one of these men major Scott Hill of the 353rd Fighter Squadron will create a video diary of their experiences there I hope they're real toilets they're not they're the holes in the floor Oh No here's a reelin initially no beds or furniture or anything like that associated with it as time went on and not too much time we ended up with bunk beds in there and everybody went to the task of building their own furniture out of building materials they could find laying around now these shell or those shells those are shell check it out homemade shells this is just like a mash your split me you see the beach outside of you yeah yeah this is a live special report from the level of news passes gravity we remain committed to take whatever steps are necessary to defend our long-standing vital interests in the Gulf nearly half a year after the 350 thirds arrival the deadline set for Iraqi troops to leave Kuwait finally comes to pass the Americans stationed in the Gulf now realize that war is inevitable early on they are told that unlike Vietnam there will be no rotation home they are in for the duration some spend the final hours taking one last look at video messages from their families most of us stayed up the night before the war and either wrote a letter home and I wrote one that I sent home one to my parents and one to my family and then I also wrote another one that I kept in my in my footlocker there in case I didn't come back from a mission and it was just more or less instructions as to you know how I wanted things to happen if I wasn't gonna come home from the desert Julie Foudy phoresis Kuwait has began on January 17th the Air Assault is launched everybody as a brother was coming to this one area because they either heard that there was a farmer out the ass and there was an everything initial strike it

Channel: weekdaywings

Views: 1,793,353

Rating: 4.6682777 out of 5

Keywords: Weekday, Wings, A, 10, Warthog, 1

Id: sM2KbwPMU18

Length: 10min 0sec (600 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/RaXha]

Just finished part 3/5. That is an impressive hole in the wing, completely insane that the thing could stay in the air with that amount of damage.

[u/DabneyEatsIt]

I can't watch right now because I am at work but I have a quick question: Is this the one that has an interview with a guy who was diving on a target and was so focused on it that he didn't notice the SAM launch that hit his wing? He screamed into the mic that he was hit but forgot to key the mic so he says it again?

[u/Brethon]

Wings was such an awesome programme. That and Flightpath should e in everyone's libraries.

[u/slaypax]

I loved all these gulf war era wings specials on discovery growing up.

There are tons of these and they're all pretty awesome.

[u/squinkys]

Shouldn't they have titled it "Depleted Uranium Rain" instead?