Thunderbolt
Went to the new Air and Space Annex yesterday and really enjoyed it. Got home and dug up this photo from one of our first trips in the UK to Duxford Air Museum. I love the P47 because it is sooo American, it is nothing but armor, a big engine and tons of machine guns. Not pretty, not clever, just fast and hard, a great plane.
August 29th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
The Thunderbolt is definitely a cool plane. An interesting note, the A-10 Thunderbolt II
(commonly referred to as the Warthog) could pretty much fit Brett’s description. The A-10 is ugly as sin, but fulfills its roll as a close are support/tank hunter beautilfully, plus they’re really easy to work on from an EOD perspective.
August 29th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
“they’re really easy to work on from an EOD perspective”
Hmmm… I didn’t realize that was in your job spec. So, if
I understand correctly, when a combat aircraft lands with
unexploded (but damaged???) ordnance they call you to
get it off the airframe and get rid of it?
August 30th, 2005 at 12:26 am
Yeah, they call us in for emergencies dealing with ordnance, generally if something fails to fire/release or a jammed gun we get called. We also occasionally work on ejection seats if there is something wrong with the explosive components or there has been a crash or successful ejection (not all the components activate during an ejection). We also deal with malfunctioned counter measures when necessary.
August 30th, 2005 at 10:50 am
On the one hand, probably a lot easier to work on our own devices
where you have the manuals/schematics, etc. On the other, I wonder
about the following sort of conversation (from my imagination, in a Bob
Newhart sort of voice):
Well Colonel, I understand that the C-130 is a very expensive aircraft
but this one does have a lot of SAM damage and I’m afraid that my crew
and I don’t have much experience working on a daisy cutter twisted into
a pretzel. So, it’s my recommendation that it be taxied out to the end of
45R and we’ll remotely detonate it in place. Uh, we’ll be happy to help
the field maintenance crew clean up whatever is left.
August 30th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Ah yes, that would be the application of EOD rule #7: There is no problem in the universe that cannot be solved with the proper application of high explosives.
Having said that, the problem becomes finding a commander that will allow the use of HE in such creative ways.