Ah, canting. So that's what my 2 year old nephew is doing!! I can see a future fighter pilot in the family. I'll do my best to brain wash him that the F-18 is the only aircraft worth flying!
PS: this is thread drift big time, but do you guys like my avatar?
Vagabond -
Let's hope that by the time your 2 year old nephew comes of age to be a fighter pilot that we are flying F/A-18s anymore! I don't even want to launch into the future of manned fighter/attack aviation anymore - it just gets depressing.
Now....your avatar. Yep - I like it. No Doubt though I've seen better.
USMC Hornet Strike Fighter
USMCFLYR
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Anybody teaching you to use a handgun or a rifle would tell you to line up the sights in front of you, now, imagine that you are lining the sights up in front of you---but, the gun is firing 6 feet to your right. Now, you want to hit the bullseye everytime---but, you're not going to be able to do that unless you adjust the sights to compensate for where the gun is.
So, in this example, you slide the sights so that the bullets will hit the target. But, they are only going to hit the bullseye if you happen to be at the right range.
So, what you want to do, is minimize as much of the aiming error as possible. And you do that by trying to build the gun exactly at the middle of the plane's line of motion (left or right, above it or below it, and you get some built in aiming errors)
An air to ground gun is built to hit targets a long way's away. So, what you want is a big, heavy bullet (just under a pound for the A10 round...and a tad under 3lbs for the entire cartridge----it is a centerfire cartridge exactly every other bullet you've seen. Just bigger, part that hits you is about as long as your hand, whole round is just a bit smaller than the distance from your elbow to the tip of your finger). And a gun that is very accurate.
The A10 started with nothing other than fixed sights, and the weapons guru's decided that 4000 feet from the target was the perfect range. So, the gun was sighted in at 4000 feet. Downside is that only works on a no wind day and at exactly 4000 feet. Closer or further away and you have to aim short or high. And if you misjudge the distance, you miss. And, if the wind is blowing, might have to aim left or right to allow the bullet to drift into the target.
Remember, bullet is spinning around just like a football (moving 3000 feet a second though), and just like a football have to compensate for the distance and the wind to hit what you want to hit....and gravity works on the path as well. If I shoot 12,000 feet from the target and I am in level flight, have to raise the sight about half an inch or so to hit the target. If I shoot 12,000 feet from the target in 30 degrees of dive (think that's about a decent ski hill angle), then I don't have to raise the sight as much.
In the case of the A10, 80% of the bullets fired hit w/in 20 feet of what you were aiming at for a 4000 foot shot. Downside is back before the computers, didn't always solve the range/wind/dive angle problem.
Air to Air gun is built to shoot planes down, so, shorter range and less accurate. More like a shotgun than a rifle. (A10's closer to a rifle since it was built to shoot close to the troops if needed. If the bad guys are in the house across the street, A10 is what you want)
And, to shoot a plane down, have to aim in front of where the plane actually is to hit it, so, to make it easier for you, you build the gun a couple of degrees above horizontal so some of the lead is already built in.
Last edited by kronan : 08-24-2008 at 01:06 PM.
Reason: content/typo
Ah, canting. So that's what my 2 year old nephew is doing!! I can see a future fighter pilot in the family. I'll do my best to brain wash him that the F-18 is the only aircraft worth flying!
PS: this is thread drift big time, but do you guys like my avatar?
I like it, but I'm Canadian so I may be a little biased .
Now is a very imformative post - thanks for the detail.
I'll take it and pass along that the A-10 gun is built along the centerline of the aircraft and has no negative cant.
Btw - as you pointed out - the differences in what are desirable for a A/A gun and A/G gun are noticeable. Supposedly the Hornet's gun is the perfect combination between that laser beam A/G gun and the shotgun A/A gun. It is at 2 degrees up cant. Of course the gun itself is your standard American fighter Vulcan 20 mm. A former A-10 pilot who came to my squadron on an echange tour came back from his first flight firing the gun and commented that he wasn't even sure if it was firing or not!
To keep with the degrees cant information is this thread - any F-15/16 pilots want to share any information?
OK, Kronan is a very experienced Hawg driver, and what he wrote was correct, but probably too much detail. Let's let an FTU IP take a hack at it:
A-10 gun is canted down approximately 2 degrees from the zero sight line (centerline of the jet). We have a computerized sight that will allow the pilot to accurately deliver bullets at almost any slant range, including well outside of their tactical effective range. i.e. the sight will tell you where they'll hit, even past the point where they've lost all of their kinetic energy.
OK, Kronan is a very experienced Hawg driver, and what he wrote was correct, but probably too much detail. Let's let an FTU IP take a hack at it:
A-10 gun is canted down approximately 2 degrees from the zero sight line (centerline of the jet). We have a computerized sight that will allow the pilot to accurately deliver bullets at almost any slant range, including well outside of their tactical effective range. i.e. the sight will tell you where they'll hit, even past the point where they've lost all of their kinetic energy.
2 degrees DOWN - there is the answer!
See - RTU/FRS IPs think alike
Btw - enjoyed your spaces at the Hawg Pens recently.
When were you last there?
Ah, canting. So that's what my 2 year old nephew is doing!! I can see a future fighter pilot in the family. I'll do my best to brain wash him that the F-18 is the only aircraft worth flying!
PS: this is thread drift big time, but do you guys like my avatar?
F-18! So I guess I did not sell you on the C-17. :
2 degrees DOWN - there is the answer!
See - RTU/FRS IPs think alike
Btw - enjoyed your spaces at the Hawg Pens recently.
When were you last there?
USMCFLYR
You bet!
I'm still here, actually - less than two months to go though until I get back to Mother Alaska (permanently this time) - I can't wait! Desert living is not for me.
I saw some Hornets on the ramp a couple of weeks ago - small world ...
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