As I approach the conclusion of my seventieth orbit around the sun, I realize that, so far, I’ve traveled over 41 billion miles at an average speed of 66.7 thousand miles per hour on this orbiting mass we call Earth. (Does that make all of us eight billion plus “spaceship” inhabitants astronauts?) Amazing as that total distance traveled and the relatively short time it took to travel it may be, it isn’t what I had in mind when titling this article. On reflection, what really “Wows” me is how rapidly technology has advanced in my lifetime. Specifically, I’d like to focus on the forty-four year time period since I flew my first of more than 2000 hours in the A-10…the Warthog…or, more simply, the Hog. (Please don’t ever call it a “Thunderbolt II.” No one in the aviation community will take you seriously.) To make my point, indulge me a bit while I stroll down memory lane and cite a few examples of the level of technology incorporated in the A-10. When compared to technologies available today you’ll agree that we have, indeed, come a long way, quickly.
First, for those of you unfamiliar with the Fairchild Republic A-10, a little background. During and following the Vietnam War, it became obvious that a dedicated close air support aircraft, capable of eliminating the threat form armored tanks and capable of extended time on station was needed to defend against Soviet invasion of Europe and allow for effective battlefield support in any threat scenario. The A-10, built around the GAU-8 (Gun, Aircraft, Unit…clever, huh?) gatling gun was perfect for “tank busting” and its high bypass ratio turbofan engines gave it the loiter capability necessary to stay in contact with friendly troops for hours rather than the minutes fighters of the day could remain on station. The A-10, designed as a low cost, maintainable, survivable, day only-Visual Flight Rules (VFR—read, clear day), single-seat, close air support (CAS) aircraft became operational in 1977. More than 700 were built and full retirement of the airframes will not be completed until 2028 or 2029…and only then if the Air Force can prove to Congress that a suitable replacement exists.
Since the A-10 was built to be low cost and easy to maintain, it was reasonable to exclude the most expensive and complex technologies of the day from the design. However, many technologies we take for granted today just didn’t exist then. As my first example of how far technology has come, consider the navigational methods of the earliest pilots of the A-10. (Note that I’m relating the capabilities of the A-10A when it came online in the late seventies. Over its nearly fifty years of service some significant modifications have taken place including a major cockpit renovation leading to a designation as the A-10C.) Maps were a Hog Driver’s means of orientation with respect to a given point on the ground such as the position of a target—no GPS existed. Armed with the appropriate maps (I carried as many as 40 of them at one time during combat operations), the aircraft hack clock, and the aircraft magnetic compass, Hog pilots flew a wind-corrected specific heading (had to employ some basic “rules of thumb” to do this calculation in your head), at a specific airspeed, for a specific time period. At the end of the elapsed time, the pilot compares the landmarks he sees outside to the map, confirms the airplane’s position and sets off on a new heading to the next turn point. This navigational method was a critical part of training to fly the A-10 as we had only a single navigational aid, a TACAN, and it was only useful at higher altitudes. Our planned altitude for ingress to targets was typically 500 feet and below, making accurate navigation and avoiding terrra firma competing priorities. What we would have given back then for Google Maps! I’ll bet few, if any, of you reading this carry even one map in your car—they’re simply not needed anymore.
What about the transmission of information to and from an A-10? We had radios—three of them—FM, VHF, and UHF. (We normally used the FM for intraflight coms, the VHF for interflight coms, and the UHF to talk to controlling agencies. All info came and went via voice…on open frequencies. Typically, a ground or airborne Forward Air Controller (FAC) would relay battlefield and target information via a pre-briefed frequency in a format called a “nine-line.” Nine pieces of information in a prescribed sequence that gave us target type, target location, location of friendly forces, etc. etc. My method of recording the nine line was to write the information on my canopy with a grease pencil. The canopy could get crowded with writing on a mission that involved several targets and/or FACs. (On the way home, I’d use the back of my flight gloves, the Nomex part, to do my best to erase all the grease pencil marks—you could really irritate a crew chief if you forgot!). You can imagine how long the transfer of critical information took and how great the potential for mistakes was. Today we all have personal devices that allow us to talk to virtually any single person or group of people with the press of a few buttons. Data can be downloaded and uploaded simply and with some inexpensive applications, we can transfer voice and/or data securely via various encryption methods.
Any systems integration present in the A-10 was born out of necessity. Especially noticeable was the lack of cockpit avionics (a made-up word from aviation electronics) integration. Granted, the cockpit was simple and most of the instrumentation was primitive by today’s standards. (Hog Drivers would proudly proclaim that we had an “avionic”—the TACAN.) Still, the addition of a processor or two could have greatly decreased the pilot workload. For example, the RWR (radar warning receiver) was a stand-alone control head and display. Self-protection chaff and flare were deployed via a stand-alone control head. Mating the two would have eliminated the need for a pilot to interpret the RWR display and manually set up the chaff/flare controls to optimize them against the ever-changing threats. Even when I flew the Hog in combat in the early nineties, our jamming pods were not integrated with the RWR gear. Again, the pilot was required to interpret the display and according to memorized best defensive settings make manual input to the jamming pod. What could possibly go wrong, right? A microprocessor and some simple software could have automated these three systems and reduced a great deal of workload…. not to mention anxiety under combat conditions.
I like to think about what an A-10 designed today might be like—how much more efficient and effective the weapons platform (I’d still pick the GAU-8 to build around) might be. I think back on what it was like to perform the mission then and how much simpler many of the difficult tasks would be today. Just a half a lifetime ago, many of the technologies we take for granted today didn’t exist, at least not in the affordable, small, maintainable packages required for inexpensive aircraft design. Today, our cars and handheld devices contain more technology and have more computing power than most of the front-line military aircraft of the late seventies and early eighties. How far we’ve come, in so little time. Can you imagine the technological advances the children of today will take for granted as they complete their seventieth lap around the sun? WOW!