I feel sort of like Mike Adams when he writes for Townhall.com, wondering whether his wife is reading his prose about his Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin action figures.

Well, my wife doesn’t read my blog, so the secret about my love affair is safe with me and my readers.

For years I went to Myrtle Beach because my family wanted to.  They loved it.  I was mostly misreable.  There was hot sun, sand, salt and a gaggle of people.  Always a gaggle of people.  I would have been happier with a backpack strapped to me, hiking through the mountains of Appalachia under the canopy of the forest.  But if my family was happy, I was happy.

Still, she caught my eye.  I couldn’t help it.  Oh … my … goodness, was she magnificent!  Her curves were powerful, yet sleek.  I always had to admire her from a distance.  I was never with the “in” crowd, so I could only look and listen and wish.

When she graced us with her appearance, everyone looked.  And stared.  I do mean everyone.  Men, women and children.  But the men, especially.  Seeing her made the trips to the beach bearable for me, that is, right up until the time when Bill Clinton closed down Myrtle Beach Air Force Base.

Yes, that year was the last time I got to admire the A-10 “Warthog.”  I have always loved her.  I recall going on a tour of MBAFB with other civilians, and while standing before the beautiful A-10, some bimbo asked “where are the planes that Tom Cruise flew?”  I held my tongue, sort of.  I murmured something about the fact that ‘you’re an idiot, please allow the rest of us to enjoy the show.’

Here is a picture of the aircraft I saw that day:

It is a subsonic aircraft by design.  Its design is to lumber around the battlefield looking for tanks and other armored vehicles to kill.  It has been the most effective aircraft for doing just that every built and put into action.  It is more effective than the attack helicopter.

She has a 30 mm Gatling gun that fires (at the time we went on the tour) depleted Uranium bullets at the rate of 3900 rounds per minutes.  I distinctly recall the deep “Brrrrr …” of the gun during the first Gulf war, after which you knew that another of Sadam’s tanks had been destroyed.

Look at her engines.  They are in front of the rear wing, with the read wing being used as protection to decrease the heat signature of the engines in order to minimize the chances of a surface-to-air heat-seeking missle hurting her. 

It has a titanium bathtub for the pilot to sit above, and redundant hydraulics for control of the aircraft.  And just in case both trains of hydraulics are knocked out by enemy fire, there is backup manual control (by sticks and cables) to get the pilot home safely.

You can read more about her here and here and here.  But there is an ugly wind blowing.  It is going to cost money to keep the old girls going.  Let’s make sure that they get this money.  The Strategy Page has this:

August 18, 2006: The U.S. Air Force wants to keep it’s A-10 ground attack aircraft going at least another ten years. That means that over 300 of them have to be rebuilt and upgraded. That’s because the A-10s were built three decades ago, with a service life of 4,000 hours in the air. Most have already got over 6,000 hours. So refurbishment will extend service life to 16,000 hours, and install an F-16 like cockpit, along with the ability to use a targeting pod and deliver GPS and laser guided bombs. This makes the A-10 the most versatile ground support aircraft in service. The A-10 still has its 30mm cannon, which, while designed to destroying armored vehicles, has proved useful against all manner of targets. The targeting pod also enables A-10 pilots to cruise around at night, and get a high-resolution view of what’s going on down there. The infantry depend on the extra eye in the sky, and the ability to deliver anything from 30mm cannon fire, to Maverick missiles to 500 pound JDAM smart bombs.

You will not find a better lady for the job for this money anywhere.  She is absolutely magnificent, and while I will never get to ride aboard this beautiful aircraft, I can still admire her from a distance, can I not?

Postscript: My job is in nuclear engineering.  I can weigh in a bit on this issue of depleted Uranium.  By depleted, they mean that U-235 has been removed and the only thing left is U-238.  U-235 is fissile, which means that it can fission with a “thermal” neutron, while U-238 is fissionable, not fissile, and can fission only with a neutron above 1 MeV.  Translation: U-235 can be used to make a bomb.  U-238 can’t.  But it pays to use U-238 to make a bullet, because it has a density just above 10 grams/cc, as compared to steel (7.82 grams/cc) or lead (which is too soft and maleable to be used to kill armored vehicles).