Titanium armor protects both the pilot and critical areas of the flight control system. Specific survivability features include titanium armor plated cockpit, redundant flight control system separated by fuel tanks, manual reversion mode for flight controls, foam filled fuel tanks, ballistic foam void fillers, and a redundant primary structure providing “get home” capability after being hit.Īll of the A-10's glass is bulletproof and the cockpit itself is surrounded by a heavy tub of titanium. The A-10 is designed to survive even the most disastrous damage and finish the mission by landing on an unimproved airfield. The A-10's survivability in the close air support arena greatly exceeds that of previous Air Force aircraft. The main gear retracts into streamlined fairing on the wing with the lower portion of the wheel protruding to facilitate emergency gear-up landings. The nose wheel retracts fully into the fuselage nose. The forward retracting tricycle landing gear incorporates short struts and a wide tread. Two vertical stabilizers are located at the outboard tips of the horizontal stabilizers. The engines are installed in nacelles mounted on pylons extending from the fuselage just aft of and above the wing. The A/OA-10 is a single place, pressurized, low wing and tail aircraft with two General Electric TF-34-100/A turbo-fan engines, each with a sea level static thrust rating of approximately 9000 pounds. This greatly increases the A-10's effectiveness at protecting ground troops. ![]() The A-10 is slow enough to be an observation plane. The Air Force requirements documents emphasized payload, low altitude flying capability, range and loiter capability, low speed maneuverability and weapons delivery accuracy. The A/OA-10 aircraft was specifically developed as a close air support aircraft with reliability and maintainability as major design considerations.
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