Chirs,
Very interesting. I was one of the first Air Force pilots to fly the A-10 which I first flew in September of 1976. We took a lot of crap back then about being ugly, bird strikes from the rear, couldn't survive in combat etc, etc. The Warthog eventually proved itself in the Gulf wars when they were down in the dirt blowing the sh** out of the Iraqi's while the "fast movers" were sky-puking from 15,000' or hauling their stuff back home because they couldn't see anything and were too thin skinned to get down where the action was. Wish I could have been part of that.

Ironically, the only complaint we had back then was that we wanted more thrust....not because we needed to go faster but so we could maintain G and airspeed while we were yanking and banking. The issue was made worse when they added the inboard slats which extended at high AOA to smooth out the airflow going into the engines. They smoothed out the airflow but added drag just when you didn't want it. Hopefully the new engines won't need the slats.

Here are a couple of old pics (taken from photographs) of my early Hog days. The one is on the ramp at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. I'm the good looking young guy on the right. The second is me flying with a Royal Netherlands F-5 during an Air Show in Holland in 1977.

Craig