Hogs #4:Snake Eaters Read Online Free
Author: Jim DeFelice
radical development.
And it was radical not because this particular pilot was very well trained or especially brave, though it goes without saying that he was both. What was radical was his plane ; a geezer engineered during World War II and pulled through the air by technology the Wright Brothers would have been familiar with.
Intended as a torpedo bomber, the Skyrai der could carry a lot of bombs to the fray and provided a very stable platform to drop them from. It was also completely outclassed by jets in every performance category, a slow-moving, low-flying aerial barge.
Which proved to be a serious asset. Flying lower and slower than a jet meant it was better at blowing little stuff up— little stuff like tanks and machine-gun nests and armored cars and mortar sites. It was exactly the sort of thing that mattered the most in that war; and, in fact, in any war.
There were more Spad missions after that first one, a lot more. And it didn’t take the brass long to realize that if the Air Force was going to be in the business of supporting grunts— not that they unanimously agreed it should, but never mind— it needed planes that were more like the A-1, less like the high-tech, go-fast, never-see-ya F-4s. The Spad’s success led, more or less directly, to the Attack Experimental program of 1967, a program that eventually resulted in the A-10A.
Among the many specifications for the AX was the ability to take off from “austere” forward air bases. Fort Apache was about as austere and forward as air bases got. The plank of concrete Doberman was about to walk was actually five hundred feet longer than the original AX specifications called for— but then, this Hog was quite a bit heavier as well.
Uglier, too. But ugly was good.
Snug inside the titanium hull of the ground pounder, Doberman leaned toward the side of the Hog and gave his ground crew, Rosen, a thumb’s up. Then he got ready to go to work. The plane had been positioned at the very edge of the runway, fanny over the sand, nose into the wind. Hawkins had anted up a few gallons and A-Bomb’s tanks had held more fuel than they’d hoped. Even so, with a good clean takeoff Doberman would only have under a half-hour to make the rendezvous with the tanker. The AWACS airborne command post coordinating the air war had been alerted, and he’d been promised priority at the tanker— but Doberman knew from experience that could be a difficult, if not impossible, promise to keep.
Trained as an engineer, the pilot tended to break things down by numbers. The numbers in this case said, no way. There was too little margin for error. But he’d been through so much in the past few days that he was almost comfortable ignoring them.
He took a breath, and told himself he was going for it. He needed a clean crank from the plane’s starter, so he could take off the second his wicks lit.
Another breath ; then his fingers flew around the cockpit, push-buttoning himself into gear. The turbines sputtered a half moment, then caught. He was off the brake asking the Hog for full kick-butt-and-let’s-go power as the whine of the GE powerplants revved up and down his spine.
The Hog gave it to him, winding her engines with a cheerful roar. No A-10A liked sitting on the ground, and this one seemed to relish the challenge ahead . She leapt into the fresh breeze more than three hundred feet before the specs said she ought to, snorting at the fools who’d underestimated her.
Doberman nudged the throttle gently once he was airborne, adjusting, adjusting, adjusting, determined to give the plane just enough fuel to fly. The Hog seemed to understand, holding steady as her pilot banked toward th e south. She jostled in the air until she found a wind current to help push her along.
Earlier in the air war, heavy weather had clogged the sky . The winter had been unusually stormy, even considering that they were in the middle of what passed for the rainy season. Today there was nothing
And it was radical not because this particular pilot was very well trained or especially brave, though it goes without saying that he was both. What was radical was his plane ; a geezer engineered during World War II and pulled through the air by technology the Wright Brothers would have been familiar with.
Intended as a torpedo bomber, the Skyrai der could carry a lot of bombs to the fray and provided a very stable platform to drop them from. It was also completely outclassed by jets in every performance category, a slow-moving, low-flying aerial barge.
Which proved to be a serious asset. Flying lower and slower than a jet meant it was better at blowing little stuff up— little stuff like tanks and machine-gun nests and armored cars and mortar sites. It was exactly the sort of thing that mattered the most in that war; and, in fact, in any war.
There were more Spad missions after that first one, a lot more. And it didn’t take the brass long to realize that if the Air Force was going to be in the business of supporting grunts— not that they unanimously agreed it should, but never mind— it needed planes that were more like the A-1, less like the high-tech, go-fast, never-see-ya F-4s. The Spad’s success led, more or less directly, to the Attack Experimental program of 1967, a program that eventually resulted in the A-10A.
Among the many specifications for the AX was the ability to take off from “austere” forward air bases. Fort Apache was about as austere and forward as air bases got. The plank of concrete Doberman was about to walk was actually five hundred feet longer than the original AX specifications called for— but then, this Hog was quite a bit heavier as well.
Uglier, too. But ugly was good.
Snug inside the titanium hull of the ground pounder, Doberman leaned toward the side of the Hog and gave his ground crew, Rosen, a thumb’s up. Then he got ready to go to work. The plane had been positioned at the very edge of the runway, fanny over the sand, nose into the wind. Hawkins had anted up a few gallons and A-Bomb’s tanks had held more fuel than they’d hoped. Even so, with a good clean takeoff Doberman would only have under a half-hour to make the rendezvous with the tanker. The AWACS airborne command post coordinating the air war had been alerted, and he’d been promised priority at the tanker— but Doberman knew from experience that could be a difficult, if not impossible, promise to keep.
Trained as an engineer, the pilot tended to break things down by numbers. The numbers in this case said, no way. There was too little margin for error. But he’d been through so much in the past few days that he was almost comfortable ignoring them.
He took a breath, and told himself he was going for it. He needed a clean crank from the plane’s starter, so he could take off the second his wicks lit.
Another breath ; then his fingers flew around the cockpit, push-buttoning himself into gear. The turbines sputtered a half moment, then caught. He was off the brake asking the Hog for full kick-butt-and-let’s-go power as the whine of the GE powerplants revved up and down his spine.
The Hog gave it to him, winding her engines with a cheerful roar. No A-10A liked sitting on the ground, and this one seemed to relish the challenge ahead . She leapt into the fresh breeze more than three hundred feet before the specs said she ought to, snorting at the fools who’d underestimated her.
Doberman nudged the throttle gently once he was airborne, adjusting, adjusting, adjusting, determined to give the plane just enough fuel to fly. The Hog seemed to understand, holding steady as her pilot banked toward th e south. She jostled in the air until she found a wind current to help push her along.
Earlier in the air war, heavy weather had clogged the sky . The winter had been unusually stormy, even considering that they were in the middle of what passed for the rainy season. Today there was nothing
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