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Canadian Poncho Homepage -> Canadian Poncho -> The Lounge -> Unbelievable "gun" write up... (3rd try...)
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03cts sport


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Unbelievable "gun" write up... (3rd try...)
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(Best I can do.  The order of the pictures is messed up.  I received the info in an email so I can't post a link.)First there was this gun .... It was developed by General Electric, the "We bring good things to life" people.  It's one of the modern-day Gatling guns. It shoots very big bullets. It shoots them very quickly.  Someone said, "Let's put it in an airplane."  Someone else said, "Better still, let's build an airplane around it, so they did. And "they" were the Fairchild-Republic airplane people. And they had done such a good job with an airplane they developed back in WWII, called the P-47 Thunderbolt, they decided to call it the A10 Thunderbolt.  They made it so it was very good at flying low and slow and shooting things with that fabulous gun. But since it did fly low and slow, they made it bulletproof, or almost so. A lot of bad guys have found you can shoot an A10 with anything from a pistol to a 23mm Soviet cannon and it just keeps on flying and shooting.When they got through, it looked like this.  It's not sleek and sexy like an F18 or the stealthy Raptors and such, but I think it's such a great airplane because it does what it does better than any other plane in the world. It kills tanks. Not only tanks, as Sadam Hussein's boys found out to their horror, but armored personnel carriers, radar stations, locomotives, bunkers, fuel depots .... Just about anything the bad guys thought was bulletproof turned out to be easy pickings for this beast. See those engines. One of them alone will fly this puppy.  The pilot sits in a very thick titanium alloy "bathtub."  That's typical of the design.  They were smart enough to make every part the same whether mounted on the left side or right side of the plane, like landing gear, for instance.  Because the engines are mounted so high (away from ground debris) and the landing gear uses such low pressure tires, it can operate from a damaged airport, interstate highway, plowed field, or dirt road. Everything is redundant. They have two of almost everything.  Sometimes they have three of something. Like flight controls.  There's triple redundancy of those,  and even if there is a total failure of the double hydraulic system, there is a set of manual flying controls.  Capt. Kim Campbell sustained this damage over Baghdad and flew for another hour before returning to base. But, back to that gun ... It's so hard to grasp just how powerful it is.  This is the closest I could find to showing you just what this cartridge is all about.  What the guy is holding is NOT the 30mm round, but a "little" .50 Browning machine gun round and the 20mm cannon round which has been around for a long time.  The 30mm is MUCH bigger.  Down at the bottom are the .50 BMG and 20x102 Vulcan the fellow was holding.  At the bottom right is the bad boy we're discussing.
Let's get some perspective here: The .223 Rem (M16 rifle round) is fast.  It shoots a 55 or so grain bullet at about 3300 feet/sec, give or take.  t's the fastest of all those rounds shown (except one).  When you move up to the ..30 caliber rounds, the bullets jump up in weight to
160-200 grains. Speeds run from about 2600 to 3000 FPS or so.  The .338 Lapua is the king of the sniper rifles these days and shoots a 350 grain bullet at 2800 FPS or so. They kill bad guys at over a mile with that one.

The .50 BMG is really big. Mike Beasley has one on his desk.  Everyone who picks it up thinks it's some sort of fake, unless they know big ammo.  It's really huge with a bullet that weighs 750 grains and goes as fast the Lapua.  I don't have data on the Vulcan, but hang on to your hat.  The bullet for the 30x173 Avenger has an aluminum jacket around a spent uranium core and weighs 6560 grains (yes, over 100 times as heavy as the M16 bullet, and flies through the air at 3500 FPS (which is faster than the M16 as well). The gun shoots at a rate of 4200 rounds per minute.  Yes, four thousand. Pilots typically shoot either one- or two-second burst which set loose 70 to 150 rounds. The system is optimized for shooting at 4,000 feet.

OK, the best for last. You've got a pretty good idea of how big that cartridge is, but I'll bet you're like me and you don't fully appreciate how big the GA GAU-8 Avenger really is.
Each of those seven barrels is 112" long. That's almost ten feet. The entire gun is 19-1/2 feet long. Think how impressive it would look set up in your living room. (Oh, by the way, it doesn't eject the empty shells but runs them back into the storage drum. There's just so dang many flying out, they felt it might damage the aircraft.) 
Oh yeah, I forgot, they can hang those bomb and rocket things on 'em too, just in case.
After all, it is an airplane!
Like I said, this is a beautiful design.  I'm glad it's ours!!

-- Edited by 03cts sport on Tuesday 11th of January 2011 02:27:45 PM

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"So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think... The good outnumber you, and we always will."  Patton Oswalt
455gto


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RE: Unbelievable "gun" write up...
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I can't see the pictures nono

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03cts sport


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I think it was there earlier?...

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lotsatas


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I don't see any pictures either..

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03cts sport


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RE: Unbelievable "gun" write up... (2nd try...)
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Now can you see it?

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lotsatas


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Nope...I only see little Red "X" 's

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03cts sport


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Weird. I can see it...

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davelacourse


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Geoff, the problem is that the link you are coopying to try to show the pictures cannot be accessed -

http://ca.mg5.mail.yahoo.com/ya/download?mid=1_191448_AFFXimIAAWtOTSutaw7PrS%

I'm sure you can see it, but nobody else can.

It would be a lot of work, but what you would have to do is look at each of the pictures you can see, 'SAVE AS' to your local hard drive, then upload those pictures to here.

Things like this:

A-10b.jpg

and this:

A-10a.jpg

etcetera

A-10c.jpg

A-10d.jpg

Dave


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56Pontiac  1956 Pontiac Pathfinder 2dr sedan, 496 - dyno'd 545 hp, stick shift, 4.11 posi - Hot Rod

  1964 Acadian Beaumont SD convert, 283 - factory 195 hp, Powerglide, 3.08 10-bolt - Cruiser

  2012 US-built crew cab truck - Daily Driver and Boat Trailering
rabbit64cs


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ah hah !! it is better with pics ! thanks...

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later...rog

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grande jim


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Notice the Rifling in those barrels.....Its like an 1/8th of an inch deep...somewhat deeper than your average pea shooter

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davelacourse


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RE: Unbelievable "gun" write up... (3rd try...)
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I think the reason you could see them before, Geoff, was that the links looked into your email. Of course nobody else could see your email.

Cool story & photos - another tidbit, the plane is so ugly its nickname is the "warthog" eh?

Dave

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56Pontiac  1956 Pontiac Pathfinder 2dr sedan, 496 - dyno'd 545 hp, stick shift, 4.11 posi - Hot Rod

  1964 Acadian Beaumont SD convert, 283 - factory 195 hp, Powerglide, 3.08 10-bolt - Cruiser

  2012 US-built crew cab truck - Daily Driver and Boat Trailering
03cts sport


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Thanks for the insight Dave!

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"So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think... The good outnumber you, and we always will."  Patton Oswalt
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Pontiacanada


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3rd. try is the charm!

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427carl


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securedownload6.jpg

securedownloadCAAQ7657.jpg

securedownload5.jpg


securedownload 1.jpg




securedownloadCAJHIX2N.jpg

 

securedownloadCAW0D137.jpg

Is it American or Canadian???   I'm glad it's ours!!



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