A-10 makes wheels up landing at Edwards

[Guest Fuse]

https://www.edwards.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123091878

3/27/2008 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II made an emergency landing here without its landing gear at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

The aircraft was participating in a Green Flag sortie out of Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. The plane, which had one person aboard, was assigned to the 75th Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Ga.

The pilot safely exited the aircraft unharmed and was evaluated by flight surgeons here before being released.

"Edwards is uniquely suited to handle these kinds of in-flight emergencies," said base officials. "Not only do we have first responders who are well-prepared and equipped to work these incidents, Edwards has the benefit of an enormous lakebed, which can provide a soft landing for any aircraft in distress."

Although a lakebed landing was an option, the A-10 performed a landing on the base's primary landing strip, Runway 22, officials said.

A board of officers will investigate the incident.

Glad the pilot is ok. That poor poor GAU-8. =( but does anyone else see the humor in this picture?

https://www.edwards.af.mil/shared/media/pho...F-3817W-002.jpg

[Guest echofox]

The right wing sporting a new set of ABUs and boots?

Hope that plane doesn't roll away...

[Guest cobaltmetallic]

It's good that they chalked it.

It looks like he messed up the gun.

Edited March 28, 2008 by cobaltmetallic

[MooseAg03]

Yeah, that was my first thought - Are those chocks really necessary?

They could have either really used those ground guys at Diego Garcia for that B-1, or maybe it was a direct result of that roll away. They wanted to make damn sure this jet didn't get away from 'em.

[Guest MizzouNav]

Looks like the plane took it like a champ, aside from the gun. That plane rocks!

[uhhello]

The jacked up gun was the cause for the wheels up landing.

[M2]

Discussed on Warthog Territory...

This happend 2 days ago (Tuesday) to one of our jets from Moody (We are TDY at Nellis right now).

The gun "blew up" in flight, and the pilot IFE'd to Edwards. The damage is surprisingly little considering what happened. The only damage to the jet is the antennas on the aft fuselage, the vent mast, vertical stab lowers and rudders. That's all. (oh, and the gun too)

Cheers! M2

[sky_king]

That airplane just needs a tailwheel and it'd be good to go.

[drewpey]

The warthog: proving the PK of the ground =/ 1

[FUSEPLUG]

Are you kidding me? I love what I do, but those chocks are just a small part of the reason it's 8 more years and I am out!

[FourFans]

So does the pilot still apply brakes on the gear up landing roll?

[FourFans]

https://www.edwards.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123091878

...That poor poor GAU-8...https://www.edwards.af.mil/shared/media/pho...F-3817W-002.jpg

Are 2 of the barrels missing, or did they just not get blown out like there rest?

[pawnman]

So does the pilot still apply brakes on the gear up landing roll?

Differential braking for the taxi, since the nosewheel steering won't work with the gear in the well.

[Guest Boom]

Differential braking for the taxi, since the nosewheel steering won't work with the gear in the well.

Ironic that statement comes from a Dyess B-1 guy.

[pawnman]

Ironic that statement comes from a Dyess B-1 guy.

Those guys had to get back to parking somehow. You'd think the pilot would have figured it out when it took full AB to get the jet moving.

BTW, I'm a B-1 FTU guy...Heading to Ellsworth this summer.

[Guest Boom]

Those guys had to get back to parking somehow. You'd think the pilot would have figured it out when it took full AB to get the jet moving.

BTW, I'm a B-1 FTU guy...Heading to Ellsworth this summer.

Cool.

Here's me refueling the Tigers in OEF.

[Guest alfakilo]

You'd think the pilot would have figured it out when it took full AB to get the jet moving.

I think he would have been too busy trying to figure out where the AB came from.

[StoleIt]

Out of curiosity, any way to tell if it was a C model?

And when the wheels are in the up position do they still rotate? It looks like the tail is the only part of the Hog that is touching the ground. I assume it would just require repairs to the GUA-8A and then a tail inspection or what not and they be back on flying status? That doesn't look like any where near enough damage to total the plane...

Edited March 29, 2008 by stoleit2x

[Guest Joe]

Out of curiosity, any way to tell if it was a C model?

And when the wheels are in the up position do they still rotate? It looks like the tail is the only part of the Hog that is touching the ground. I assume it would just require repairs to the GUA-8A and then a tail inspection or what not and they be back on flying status? That doesn't look like any where near enough damage to total the plane...

It's a 75FS jet and they only have C models. That plane is nowhere near totaled. And there isn't really a way to tell if it's a C model unless you look at the cockpit, or see a TGP on station 2 or 10, or see some GBU-38's on it.

Edited March 29, 2008 by Joe

[Ram]

I'm getting a little laugh out of the people complaining about the chocks...seeing as how the gear design of the A-10 enables it to land gear-up with minimal damage. When retracted, the main wheels stick out of the bottom of the pods by about six inches. This was intentionally a part of the design, as it enables it to land gear-up and quickly return to combat with minimal repairs.

Hell, I bet it even rolled a little.

I'm not a Hog driver though, so I bet others could tell us more.

[Guest Boom]

I'm not a Hog driver though, so I bet others could tell us more.

From a Hawg Driver on another board:

That gear up landing happened just a couple days ago, at Green Flag. The gun exploded and ed up the nose gear so it wouldn't come down.

[Ram]

From a Hawg Driver on another board:

Yeah, I had caught that part.

I'm not saying that gear-up landing is a NORMAL option in the Hog...I'm just saying that the A-10 is designed to minimize/mitigate the effects of damage, including gear-up landing damage.

[HerkDerka]

Discussed on Warthog Territory...

Cheers! M2

MOTO returns.

From a Hawg Driver on another board:

HD

[BFM this]

The last jet that landed in this configuration (at DM) had damage to the vertical stabs and lost some antennas. It was up for it's FCF within a few weeks.

There's a checklist page for this procedure and among other features, you'll have unlimited brakes available (no anti-skid), differential brakes for steering (though I'd make the SOF get OG approval before I took the high-speed...), and the flaps and speed brakes are not expected to contact the rwy.

The CL calls for jettison, so even though this jet was flying a Flag sortie, it is without the training Mavs normally found on the stations just outboard of the gear wells (prob somewhere on the range, still attached to their rails) and any other fun that they might have had on the other stations (bombs, rx, etc).

Cheers,

[donkey]

**REVIVAL**

I have a question or two about the hog. I was reading a few days ago about how it was designed so that its wheels protruded slightly when raised so that it could make a belly landing with minimal damage (as stated here already) in case the landing gears couldn't be lowered. I also read that the gears are hinged at the back, so that if hydraulic pressure was lost, the pilot could manually release them, and with a combination of gravity and wind resistance they would lower and lock into place.

In a battle damaged situation (or just a mechanical failure) where you lose hydraulic pressure, when/how do you decide whether to try to manually lower the gear and then land vs landing with the gears up. I would assume that if you had battle damage and a main (or one of the three) was blown (sts) away, you'd come in gears up so as not to cartwheel or possibly flip on touch down. If that was the case, is there a way to know in the cockpit that you're missing a gear, or are you replying entirely on a wing man visually ID'ing that?

Any specific emergency thought processes or procedures for that kind of stuff?

If any of that is OPSEC, sorry and disregard.

Thanks