The American Air Museum at Duxford holds the greatest collection of American historic military aircraft in Europe. In this picture the center aircraft is a suspended Fairchild Republic A-10 'Thunderbolt II', often called a 'Warthog' or 'Hog'. It also shows a suspended Boeing Stearman PT-17 (behind the A-10), a suspended Spad S-13 (to the left), in the lower left the right wing of the Boeing B-52 D 'Stratofortress' with numbers 5 & 6 and 7 & 8 engines visible. In the upper left the left wing of the Lockheed U-2 (suspended), in the lower right the left wing of the Consolidated B-24 M 'Liberator' and in the lower foreground the Republic P-47 D 'Thunderbolt'. During the Vietnam War the US Air Force realized that it did not have a close air support aircraft in its inventory. F-100s, F-105s, and F-4s were unsuited for this role, and helicopters such as the UH-1 'Iroquois' and AH-1 'Cobra' were ill-suited for use against armor. The effective, but aging piston-driven Korean war era A-1 'Skyraider' was the USAF's primary close air support aircraft. So in the early 1970s Fairchild Republic was tasked to develop the A-10 'Thunderbolt II' for use as a close air support aircraft of ground forces. The aircraft is a twin-engine, straight-wing jet that was built to attack tanks, armored vehicles and other ground targets with limited defenses. The A-10 was designed around the GAU-8 Avenger 30 mm rotary cannon, that is the aircraft's primary armament and the heaviest such automatic cannon mounted on any aircraft. The air frame was designed for surviveability, using 1,200 lbs. of titanium amor for protection of the cockpit and aircraft systems that enabled the aircraft to continue flying after taking significant damage. During the 1977 Paris Le Bourget Air Show the test pilot that demonstrated the A-10s capabilities failed to complete a loop, crashed the aircraft and was killed. For the reminder of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s the aircraft was in the US Air Force inventory, but was not much loved. The Air Force pilots didn't like to fly it - it was not glamorous enough. Not pretty enough and too slow. In the late 1980s the Air Force contemplated retiring it. When the first Gulf War came along, the Air Force remembered what they had. The aircraft avionics were updated, it was modified for aerial refueling (so it could be dragged across the Atlantic). The A-10 could operated from forward bases, had short take -off and landing capability, loitering capability, and was ideal for operating in the rough environment. During the Gulf War of 1991 it was credited with destroying 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 military vehicles, and 1,200 artillery pieces. It was by far the most effective aircraft of that war. The A-10 doesn't look like much but having seen it on the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range in Arizona, coming in at low level, doing about 300 kts and seeing the puff of smoke at its nose, an almost simultaneous puff of smoke about 1000 yards or so down range and hearing the eerie sound the rounds make travelling through the air is chilling. It is scheduled to stay in the Air Force inventory, with various upgrades. This picture was taking at 13 July 2014, Sig... I will comment tomorrow, running out of time!!!