Warplane

The A-10 is the Air Force's unlikely success story, an airplane designed to support the Army, and one that ground troops came to venerate. Originally conceived with the express purpose of destroying Soviet tanks, the Air Force only developed it to keep funding away from the Army's response to the mission, the AH-56 Cheyenne helicopter. Inspired by the biography of a tank-busting German pilot in World War II, the engineering and design of the A-10 fell to Pierre Sprey, a precocious civilian who'd enrolled at Yale when he was just 15-years-old, and now, barely 30, wasexiled to a Pentagon backwater with little, if any, supervision. The end result was one of the finest military aircraft ever built, a plane essentially constructed around a 19.5-foot, 4,000-pound cannon that fired 30mm depleted uranium bullets at a blistering rate. Looking like it was built from discarded airplane parts, it was probably the ugliest combat aircraft ever built, thus the "Warthog" appellation. But it was also an incredibly reliable ground attack aircraft, beloved by ground troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Despite repeated attempts to replace it with stealth aircraft and drones, over 280 A-10s remain in service today, serviced by dedicated and imaginative engineers and maintainers, and defended by a fervent cohort of advocates descended from the Military Reform movement. This is the story of intra-service rivalries, Pentagon obsessions with speed and stealth over tactical simplicity, and an aircraft that shows no sign of obsolescence as it nears fifty years in service.

"The narrative of its development is a lively, insightful example of conflicting views on Pentagon expenditures (in the billions of dollars) to engineer designs that may--or may not--be valuable for certain aspects of national defense.... Complex arguments about costs, effectiveness, and speed vs. battlefield utility are described in terms accessible to non-technical readers. Likely to be of interest to military buffs, aeronautical designers, engineering companies, and legislators."

-- "Library Journal"

"This is a fascinating book, and an important one. I love narrative nonfiction that combines personality, history, technology, mystery -- and the larger consequence of the story for all of us. Hal Sundt has done just this."

--James Fallows, author of National Defense.

--James Fallows, author of National Defense

"This is a terrific and important book, a vivid, beautifully written, account of how a group of extraordinary individuals - one in particular - created a unique machine. The story of the A-10 "Warthog," is the saga of a weapon that is most notable for saving lives rather than taking them. Hal Sundt makes it clear that America has something precious in the A-10, not just the airplane itself and the features that make it so effective, but the spirit of dedication and integrity in the community that produced and nurtures it."

--Andrew Cockburn, author of The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine

"Warplane? Not on my must-read list! But Sundt draws you in with a cast of bold truthtellers. They share a set of ideas about making things - in this case, the 50+ year old A10 - in ways that make rare sense. It works for the people who fly it and meets the perilous but simple purpose of protecting the lives of soldiers fighting on the ground. This continuing story makes a case too seldom made for the value of actual experience, of realistic testing and measuring results to make things that work. You will not read the daily news of multi-billion dollar fighter jets the same again."

--Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director, Institute for Human Centered Design

Hal Sundt is a writer from Rochester, Minnesota. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Ringer, The American Scholar, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. He lives in New York City.

The A-10 "Warthog" is the combat aircraft the U.S. Air Force didn't want, the Army tried to co-opt, and ground troops came to venerate. Originally conceived with the express purpose of destroying Soviet tanks, the Air Force only developed it to keep funding away from the Army's response to the mission, the AH-56 Cheyenne helicopter. Inspired by the biography of a tank-busting German pilot in World War II, the unapologetic Nazi Hans Rudel, the engineering and design of the A-10 fell to a thirty-year-old Yale graduate exiled to a Pentagon backwater with little, if any, supervision. The end result was one of the finest military aircraft ever built, a plane essentially constructed around a 19.5-foot, 4,000-pound cannon that fired uranium-depleted bullets the size of a cucumber. Looking like it was built from discarded airplane parts, it was probably the ugliest combat aircraft ever built, thus the "Warthog" appellation. But it was also an incredibly reliable ground attack aircraft, beloved by ground troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. It is also the airplane that the Air Force has over and over again tried to kill, in favor of stealth aircraft and drones. But over 280 A-10s remain in service today, serviced by a dedicated and imaginative maintenance team in Utah, often using 3-D printing to create replacement parts. This is the story of intra-service rivalries, Pentagon obsessions with speed and stealth over tactical simplicity, and an aircraft that shows no sign of obsolescence as it nears fifty years in service.

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