Monday, July 16, 2012

Drink Up, Warthogs!

My all-time favorite military aircraft is the A-10, known as the "Warthog" because of its ungainly appearance.  Powered by two turbofan engines, its top speed is about 450 miles per hour.  It can carry an assortment of bombs and missiles, but its most formidable weapon is its built-in 30mm machine gun, designed for destroying enemy tanks.  All these weapons are intended to be used mainly against targets on the ground, although I once read about one using its cannon to destroy an airborne Iraqi helicopter.  Because of its firepower and relatively slow speed, I call it the "offensive lineman" of military airplanes.  I'm pretty sure that the A-10 is the last thing that some jihadis see before meeting Allah.

The fuel supplies for the A-10's two engines are mutually segregated, which enables it to test new types of fuel with one engine, while the other uses a traditional fuel in case the new fuel doesn't perform.  With this in mind, the variant designated A-10C is now being used to test new fuels at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida, including some based on alcohol made by fermenting sugar extracted from biomass.  We can now offer a toast to the A-10, and mean it literally.

Read more at the Daily Mail.

Go here for more on the A-10.

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