Warplane by Hal Sundt
The A-10 Warthog is the combat aircraft the U.S. Air Force didn't want, the Army tried to co-opt, and ground troops came to venerate. Originally conceived with the express purpose of destroying Soviet tanks, the Air Force only developed it to keep funding away from the Army's response to the mission, the AH-56 Cheyenne helicopter. Inspired by the biography of a tank-busting German pilot in World War II, the unapologetic Nazi Hans Rudel, the engineering and design of the A-10 fell to a thirty-year-old Yale graduate exiled to a Pentagon backwater with little, if any, supervision. The end result was one of the finest military aircraft ever built, a plane essentially constructed around a 19.5-foot, 4,000-pound cannon that fired uranium-depleted bullets the size of a cucumber. Looking like it was built from discarded airplane parts, it was probably the ugliest combat aircraft ever built, thus the Warthog appellation. But it was also an incredibly reliable ground attack aircraft, beloved by ground troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. It is also the airplane that the Air Force has over and over again tried to kill, in favor of stealth aircraft and drones. But over 280 A-10s remain in service today, serviced by a dedicated and imaginative maintenance team in Utah, often using 3-D printing to create replacement parts. This is the story of intra-service rivalries, Pentagon obsessions with speed and stealth over tactical simplicity, and an aircraft that shows no sign of obsolescence as it nears fifty years in service.| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781493067718 |
| ISBN 10 | 1493067710 |
| Title | Warplane |
| Author | Hal Sundt |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield |
| Year published | 2023-10-03 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |