Crazy aviation question time! And it’s probably unanswerable, too! Joy!
Anyway. Well, I’ll jump right to it: would anyone here be able to speculate what it would take to modify an A-10 Thunderbolt (aka “Warthog”) to be capable of operating off of an aircraft carrier? A CATOBAR carrier, specifically, like the Nimitz class.
And better yet, could anyone take a guess on how much it would cost?
At minimum, I believe, this would require adding an arrestor hook, possibly some strengthening of the undercarriage for catapult takeoffs, and the most fun bit…folding wings, to reduce deck footprint. I don’t know what the maximum permitted on a Nimitz-class carrier would be, but a normal A-10 has a wingspan of 57 feet. An F-14’s swept wingspan is only 38’, and an F-35C’s will be 43’.
Say you want to create at least an entire squadron of 12 aircraft, so it’s not a one-off, for what the matters for cost and operability.
Now, obviously, unless someone’s got an aircraft design team and an accountant or two with a lot of time on their hands sitting in their basement right now, there’s no way in hell I’m going to get a definite dollar amount for the per-unit cost of modification. But is there any chance of getting a ballpark figure—at least one more exact than “between one and one billion bucks per aircraft”?
And, of course, this is entirely leaving aside the political and bureaucratic problems to doing this, and probably the question of actual military utility value to boot. Hey, I know it’ll never happen. I’m just curious to know what it would take to make it work if it could.
The Carrier Hook, certainly.
Folding wings are not something you can just do. Its not like a repricating saw, a couple hinges and Voila! The aircraft had to be designed around foldable wings. The A-10 might just be simple enough for a simple conversion.
As for take off/landing - The A-10 can do it in the short distances of flightdeck.
Being former Air Force, I can say with certainty that A-10s have used the Nimitz as a base at various times in the past.
A10s are mostly retired for a reason - there’s better stuff out there. We don’t need tank killer aircraft when we have long range missiles with pinpoint accuracy. A10s are highly resistant to slug throwers, but very succeptable to air to air missiles - the mainstay of the contemporary navy and airforce.
The F/A-18 is expected to go through a service life extension program beginning in the next few years. This is essentially going through the aircraft and replacing or upgrading parts so it can fly for about 2,000 hours more than its currently expected lifespan (going from 8k hrs to about 10k). The cost of doing this is expected to be about $25-30 million per plane.
And that’s something that is being done to essentially restore a plane to a better condition, not invent new engineering solutions for a plane that’s not designed to be used on a carrier.
I can only guess that the cost of doing that to an A-10 would be several times higher than the work for an F/A-18.
On Edit: By way of comparison, a new Joint Strike Fighter, once they’re being produced in large numbers, would be somewhere in the $65 million range, IIRC.
I think it could be done without extreme expense, but I have no real way of estimating a dollar cost. As noted above, primary issues would be the wingspan, arresting gear, and possibly landing gear. I’d have some concern about the weapons loading stations if the wings were made foldable, but there’s probably a way to deal with it. Really don’t see much use for A-10s in naval combat, but they are excellent in tank busting or close air support roles, and could be launched from a carrier for those missions if other solutions were impracticable, I suppose.
Comparing the Air Force JSF with the Navy JSF, the carrier variant weighs a several thousand pounds more than the conventional one. This is due to larger wings, control surfaces, different landing gear, and a significantly stronger structure.
I’m no aerospace engineer, but the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that it would make much more sense to figure out how to put a GAU-8 on an existing, carrier qualified aircraft, rather than try to get the A-10 to fly off a carrier.
I think you have to add strengthening the whole airframe. Carrier launches and landings are a considerable stress on the whole airframe. Just adding a hook is not sufficient as you may well tear the plane in half unless it is built to accept that load.
The above is the main problem with this scenario. Taking a plane already designed and produced that is land-based, then trying re-engineer it for carrier ops, is bad juju. The whole thing would need to be redesigned, and even then I’d imagine you’d have all sorts of problems (e.g., is the approach speed acceptable for carrier ops, and is maneuverability at that speed good enough for carrier ops? Is the extra weight of the reinforced structure, landing gear, folding wings mechanics, and tailhook going to make its range useless and make the engines underpowered? Is it too big to fit (even with folded wings) on the elevator?). This is sort of like the F-111 fiasco–never mix AF and Navy planes. They’re just too different. Take the requirements, then design, then build. Never the other way around.
Yes, I know about the JSF. Don’t wanna talk about it.
I have a different opinion on this, a slow mover with good loiter time and packing a powerful punch is a wonderful gap filler to cover the small boat attack scenario that is a real world threat to Navy ships. Good look down with a FLIR (if they don’t have it already) and superior targeting of smaller, slow moving targets.
The stall speed is 120 knots, the F-14 carrier approach speed is 132 knots, so carrier landings should be fine. Right up until they crash and fall apart due to structural issues, of course, but solve those, and it is a great platform for the modern threat. Hell, if the Air Force and Navy don’t want them, the Marines would LOVE to have them!
I’m really curious as the provenance of the dea that the A-10’s were “mostly retired” and obsolete. They were the best ground-attack plane in the world, and remain so. They probably have more soldier kills to their credit than any other warplane in history.
It may not take much at all if it were really needed. The C-130 Hercules has demonstrated carrier operations numerous times with no modifications at all even though it isn’t used that way. The A-10 Warthog is a similarly versatile aircraft but even smaller and might be able to pull off carrier operations with no arrestor hook.
I’m sorry. This is ridiculous. While it may be possible, it by no means would ever happen as a matter of practice. You will never see, with today’s technology and carriers, a carrier fixed-wing aircraft without a tailhook and a carrier without wires.
It isn’t “used that way” because it’s needlessly dangerous. And that’s putting it mildly. The OP isn’t asking if it’s possible to shove the aircraft on the carrier, he’s asking if it can be adapted to the carrier aviation regime.
I wasn’t saying that it is a responsible thing to do or that the ultimate standard operating procedure would simply involve an A-10 landing on an aircraft carrier with no modifications. I was saying that there are planes other than fighters that can land on an aircraft carrier reliably. The cost would be extremely high, not only because of the aircraft modifications, but also because of the support needed for such a plane landing on a carrier. Fighters cost a ton to build and support already so you have to take that into account with the figures. My point is that it could be done if it were a priority but I doubt it ever would be.
One big problem is that the front landing gear on the A-10 is offset to make room for it’s cannon. That’s where you’d need to hook up the catapult, so you’s have to redesign the front end or lose the gun.
That struck me oddly too. This says the AF is considering keeping them around after their retirement date of 2028.
The launches and traps are violent events that require a substantially stronger airframe for a carrier-launched aircraft. The launch is at, what, 3 g’s? Assuming a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1 (and the A-10 doesn’t come close in this regard), the catapult is pulling on the nose gear with twice the weight of the plane; the airframe and landing gear weren’t designed for this at all. Landing gear mod? Probably not outrageous. Airframe mods? Probably prohibitively expensive.
Landing? same deal with the tail hook, but the impact with the deck is probably even more violent. Here is a video of a drop test: they dropped an F-18 from 20 feet to test landing gear performance. (Same test, different angle here.) Strengthening the landing gear is only part of the picture; the airframe would have to be modified to tolerate those kinds of impacts, too.
This is accurate. The AF just invested a lot of money to update the platform. It won’t go anywhere until the JSF is introduced. I work with an A-10 pilot, and that’s what he says.
What’s the point of the F/A-18 upgrade? Won’t the JSF be operational next year?
Of course, the A-10 is virtually designed around the cannon, so getting rid of it or replacing it with a more conventional wing-root mounted weapon would kind of defeat the purpose of a carrier-operated A-10 anyway.
That sort of massive structural strengthening would add some serious weight. Maybe enough to ensure that it would never get off the flight deck with any meaningful payload?
The naval version of the JSF is expected to be operational in 2014, but they won’t be available in large enough numbers to replace the F/A-18s that are going to be beyond their expected operational life.
To put it another way, the older F/A-18s are expected to be aging out faster than new F-35s will be built.
