From the same airshow as the previous Blue Angels shot, this one is of one of my favorite aircraft as a kid, the A10. The fun facts that I remember, or as the case may be, misremember (see previous Wikipedia link if you want real information):
- The A10’s the cockpit, engines and a few other critical components are titanium cased, so the plane can look like swiss cheese and still get home
- They shoot a 30mm depleted uranium (one of the densest metals) to cut through armor – note, that as I just learned when finding that link, DU retains 60% of its radioactivity, so it’s still not really OK to have around. Sadness.
- They often operated in pairs and given the large wing area could bank such that one of them was attacking a ground target every 8-9 seconds.
I’m not really saying that it’s not still my favorite aircraft, but I’m possibly not as impressed as I once was with what the Air Force uses to cut through armored vehicles.
Oh, and that other jet up there with it… That’s F-86 Sabre which I had to look up based on the “FU-46” on the tail and know absolutely nothing about.
Picture taken with Canon Rebel 350D, EF 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 IS lens @ 300mm, 1/640 sec shutter, f/9.0 (oops?), ISO 200
