October 1, 200718 yr Is the "O" for "Observation"? Is it generally for FAC's? Is there anything different about the OA-10 than there is about the A-10? I've never heard of the 310th guys flying the OF-16... Cheers! -Stuck
October 2, 200718 yr Is the "O" for "Observation"? Is it generally for FAC's? Is there anything different about the OA-10 than there is about the A-10? I've never heard of the 310th guys flying the OF-16... Cheers! -Stuck The 'O' is for observation. Can't speak to the OA versus the A-10...pretty sure it's all the same though. I think the reason they never put the 'O' designation on the F-16 is because the Viper wasn't originally designed to do the 'O' type shit. Vipers can do the FAC gig but it's not optimized for the mission like the Hog is, nor do most Viper guys train to the level Hog drivers do. Oh, and it's not just the 310th that does the FACing.
October 2, 200718 yr I thought I heard somewhere that the "O" in OA-10 was solely for the purpose of buying more A-10s. There's no difference between the two. By putting the "O" in front, the Air Force could get more planes stating that it was a different aircraft/ different mission......could be wrong.
October 2, 200718 yr What I was told by an IP (who's an A-10 MWS guy), is that some dudes are FAC qual'd, but don't necessarily fly that mission all the time. So one day you could have a FAC mission and the next day you could be doing the standard CAS mission. They fly the same jets, just loaded up differently. So I guess if you are FAC qual'd, you could technically say you fly the OA-10.
October 2, 200718 yr It was only a matter of time... HD Nice. Now get to work photoshopping some winglets on a Herk...
Create an account or sign in to comment