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101st Airborne
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« on: June 29, 2007, 03:04:13 AM » |
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DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE: Air Force officials are making significant changes to A-10 Thunderbolt IIs as part of the "Precision Engagement" upgrade, which changes the aircraft designation from the A-10A to the A-10C.
For the A-10C pilots at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, this means they digitally access the most current information from command and control systems instead of annotating friendly and enemy locations in grease pencil on paper maps. SADL automatically updates the digital battlefield information on the integrated moving map in the aircraft
"It's the largest upgrade the A-10 has ever had by far," said Maj. Drew English, the program manager for A-10C Precision Engagement. "The gist of it is to bring the A-10 from being an analog jet to a digital jet," he said
General Characteristics
Primary Function: A-10 -- close air support, OA-10 - airborne forward air control
Contractor: Fairchild Republic Co.
Power Plant: Two General Electric TF34-GE-100 turbofans
Thrust: 9,065 pounds each engine
Length: 53 feet, 4 inches (16.16 meters)
Height: 14 feet, 8 inches (4.42 meters)
Wingspan: 57 feet, 6 inches (17.42 meters)
Speed: 420 miles per hour (Mach 0.56)
Ceiling: 45,000 feet (13,636 meters)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 51,000 pounds (22,950 kilograms)
Range: 800 miles (695 nautical miles)
Armament: One 30 mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun; up to 16,000 pounds (7,200 kilograms) of mixed ordnance on eight under-wing and three under-fuselage pylon stations, including 500 pound (225 kilograms) Mk-82 and 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) Mk-84 series low/high drag bombs, incendiary cluster bombs, combined effects munitions, mine dispensing munitions, AGM-65 Maverick missiles and laser-guided/electro-optically guided bombs; infrared countermeasure flares; electronic countermeasure chaff; jammer pods; 2.75-inch (6.99 centimeters) rockets; illumination flares and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles.
Crew: One
Date Deployed: March 1976
Unit Cost: $9.8 million (fiscal 98 constant dollars)
Inventory: Active force, A-10, 143 and OA-10, 70; Reserve, A-10, 46 and OA-10, 6; ANG, A-10, 84 and OA-10, 18
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