For what it’s worth - possibly nothing, but still - the main terminal for SEPTA, the Philadelphia area’s public transit service, is on 69th Street. Like, it’s a real place, not necessarily a reference to anything untoward.

The A-10 was built because the attack helicopters were inadequate. How have they changed?

Son... are you a special kind of stupid? While I like the F-35, I freely admit that it’s a shit show when it comes to CAS: can barely carry 45 seconds of cannon ammo... internal rocket bays can’t carry nearly as much as the A-10 wing pylons... the composite skin makes the F-35 low-survivable against even moderate…

Well attack helicopter loiter time is lousy, and the other two don’t do low and slow, or land without an improved runway so...not really.

F35s are not fine. Cant carry near the payload as an a10, and cant take the beating the a10 can.

That’s all that they need. Take the current A-10, spit and polish with modern materials, boom: A-10D. (Looks like they’re up to A-10C right now).

So basically they want the A-10 replacement to be an A-10. Makes sense...

The Zero was designed to be very, very light. It had great range and great maneuverability, at the expense of pilot protection.

Can we just start prefacing all A-10 stories with the same photo for the TL:DR crowd?

Whaaa? Much higher stall speed, less reliable and non-redundant engines, a smaller cannon, no titanium cockpit shell, no redundant tail fins, and smaller wingspan that won’t keep it flying should a chunk of wing go missing? Also, good luck taking off from the runways the A-10 uses.

The A-10 was specifically designed with intrinsic “countermeasures” against ground fire. The pilot’s “tub” of armor, vertical stabilizers that obscure the engines, good low speed maneuverability, etc.

It’s not like the A-10 has never been shot down before. We lost like six of them in Desert Storm, and a lot more have been shot to hell since.

They don’t even need to build more of them, we already have 300 of them, and most have been highly upgraded.

The desperation to kill the A-10 seems to be crossing well into the insanity realm. Our obsession with having the fanciest and newest shiniest weapons is going to bite us in the ass here. And probably not in the too distant future if we continue to gut everything to support the mammoth cluster f*** that is the F-35.…

Sorry, that’s what I meant. Future stuff.

Yeah, seriously. The future of Gawker is not particularly bright at the moment.

Yeah, I asked him on the post right before this one, and he said that the 15th will be his last day here at FA. He’s moving to Drive full time.

Likewise. And the commenters on those stories— it’s like a magnet for the self-righteous, judgmental, downright hateful, and the hyperbolic know-nothing club.

If the former is the case I’ll be happy to follow. I think I’ve about had it with Gawker’s antics the past couple months.

you did not even read it and you are totally wrong.