Toronto Air Show

[goodguy]

Few pictures of the show, I was few kilometers away from the show but I tried to take advantage of that fact and have an interesting few with the planes, most of the pictures are not sharp enough due to very bad haze but here are few I was happy with.

 

[SCraig]

The third one is interesting in that there appears to be a "False Canopy" painted on the bottom of the airplane. The USAF did that on some of the A-10 color schemes, the philosophy being that it might confuse an adversary into thinking it was the top of the airplane and mistaking what direction it was banking. I have no idea whether the idea works or not, but maybe it would make one pause for a second or so.

 

[goodguy]

The third one is interesting in that there appears to be a "False Canopy" painted on the bottom of the airplane. The USAF did that on some of the A-10 color schemes, the philosophy being that it might confuse an adversary into thinking it was the top of the airplane and mistaking what direction it was banking. I have no idea whether the idea works or not, but maybe it would make one pause for a second or so.

Wow never knew that, thanks for sharing

 

[SCraig]

Wow never knew that, thanks for sharing

Well, I never would have either however I built a model of an A-10 a few years ago (pix are Here. It was a pain to build and wound up taking close to 400 hours start to finish) and ran across that tidbit of information while researching it. Mind you, I'm not certain that's what I see in your photograph but it sure looks like it. Do you by chance have a tighter shot of the second photo?

 

[goodguy]

A-10 is one plane I never heard of, my home land never used it.
Anti tank and ground support is mostly sitting on the shoulders of the Apache Helicopter, I learned about it only when I saw the planes the US used in Iraq, very interesting plane, as far as I know its the only modern straight wing jet plane. it was made when survivability was one of its key features.
Its a one deadly MF :mrgreen:

Here is a cropped picture of the F-18, the amount of detail you are getting on these 24MP D7100 cameras is amazing, I can just imagine how much detail you can get from a D800 36MP pictures.

 

[SCraig]

That sure looks like a false canopy painted on the bottom, right down to the canopy rail between the front and rear sections

The A-10 is a very interesting airplane, different from anything in the US inventory in many instances. It is the only airplane ever designed around its gun. It uses a multi-barrel 30mm GAU-8 Avenger cannon (Here Is A Photo of one beside a Volkswagen for scale!). Each cartridge is about the size of a Coke bottle and it will fire up to 4,200 of them a minute.

Survivability was most assuredly a key design feature. The pilot sits inside a Titanium "Bathtub" to protect him. The engines sit up high and in between the two rudders to help mask them from heat seekers. It is slow, flies low, and is tough as nails

Years ago I worked around Fort Campbell, KY a lot and used to see them support ground troops in mock combat. It's a sight to see!

 

[ShaneF]

I was at that show it was awsome...thanks for sharing your pics.

 

[goodguy]

That sure looks like a false canopy painted on the bottom, right down to the canopy rail between the front and rear sections

The A-10 is a very interesting airplane, different from anything in the US inventory in many instances. It is the only airplane ever designed around its gun. It uses a multi-barrel 30mm GAU-8 Avenger cannon (Here Is A Photo of one beside a Volkswagen for scale!). Each cartridge is about the size of a Coke bottle and it will fire up to 4,200 of them a minute.

Survivability was most assuredly a key design feature. The pilot sits inside a Titanium "Bathtub" to protect him. The engines sit up high and in between the two rudders to help mask them from heat seekers. It is slow, flies low, and is tough as nails

Years ago I worked around Fort Campbell, KY a lot and used to see them support ground troops in mock combat. It's a sight to see!

Wow, wish I was near where these planes do their mock attacks, I drooling to the thought of what AMAZING pictures I could take

BTW if I am not mistaking the bullets of the 30mm gun are made of depleted Uranium, just a quick burst of this gun and a tank can say bye, bye.

 

[goodguy]

I was at that show it was awsome...thanks for sharing your pics.

I wasn't there per say, I was away and the shots I got were when the planes took a long turn to collect together to return for another swoop.

 

[SCraig]

Wow, wish I was near where these planes do their mock attacks, I drooling to the thought of what AMAZING pictures I could take

BTW if I am not mistaking the bullets of the 30mm gun are made of depleted Uranium, just a quick burst of this gun and a tank can say bye, bye.

Unfortunately, at the time I didn't had a camera with me. I seldom took one to work since they tended to sit in a very hot truck all day. But, yeah, I would have loved to have some shots of them as well.

You are not mistaken. Depleted Uranium is one of the rounds the GAU-8 fires. There are also HE (high-explosive), HEI (high explosive incendiary), SAP (semi-armor piercing), tracer, and just plain old jacketed. They normally put a tracer every few rounds (one in six comes to mind but I could be wrong) and when the gun fires at night it looks like a tongue of flame all the way to the target. They could also mix other styles depending on the mission parameters.