The Chopper Popper (and friend)

"Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole" (Dukie)
02/28/2014 at 11:20 • Filed to: Flying Low Friday, Planelopnik, A-10

So the significance of this A-10A:

Is it's namesake. A-10A 77-0205 was called the "Chopper Popper" as of February 6, 1991, the day it scored the first Air-to-Air kill of any A-10.

As Swain described Wednesday's episode to pool reporters, the pilot of the observation plane, Capt. Jon Engle, confirmed that the black dots were helicopters. Swain took off in pursuit. One chopper peeled off to the north and escaped. The other headed south, with the A-10 on its trail.

Swain said his AIM-9 heat-seeking missile would not lock onto the small target racing 50 feet above the desert floor. So he switched to the seven-barrel, 30-millimeter cannon mounted in the nose of his plane.

"I started firing about a mile away," Swain said. "Some of the bullets ran through him, but we weren't sure if it was stopped completely. So I came back with the final pass, hit it and it fell apart.

"On the final pass, I shot about 300 bullets at him. That's a pretty good burst. On the first pass, maybe 75 rounds. The second pass, I put enough bullets down, it looked like I hit with a bomb.

"We tried to ID the helicopter after we were done and it was just in a bunch of little pieces, so we can't tell what type it was."

Swain, 33, is an Air Force reservist. In peacetime, he flies Boeing 767s for USAir and lives in Charlotte, N.C. His wife, Liz, is seven months pregnant with their first child.

The helicopter he shot down was reported to be an Iraqi Bo-105

Now, some of you might be wondering what the picture of the A-10C I posted had anything to do with Chopper Popper? Well, the answer is the green star painted just under the crew block. Why is it important? Look closely:

Not to be outdone, Captain Todd Sheehy shot down an Iraqi Mi-8 9 days later.

Captain Sheehy's next twenty-four sorties were against Iraqi artillery positions and vehicles situated well back from the border. On his twenty-seventh combat sortie, on February 15, 1991, he led Lt. Jay Keller from the forward operating base at Al Jouf. The A-10s were briefed to go to a point a few miles from Mudaysis Airfield in southwest Iraq, where enemy planes had been found hidden in revetments in the desert. Captain Sheehy destroyed an Su-20 "Fitter" with cluster bombs and cannon fire and headed away from the area, climbing back to 20,000 feet.

As he did so, he heard the controller in the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft trying to contact some A-10s that had departed the area. Captain Sheehy told the controller that he and his wingman were available, and he was informed of a low and slow contact thirty miles to the northeast. Captain Sheehy started in that direction and commenced a shallow descent. Soon afterward, the A-10 pilot saw a small cloud of dust and a dark object moving across the desert. Leaving Lieutenant Keller above to cover his attack, Captain Sheehy rolled inverted and pulled into a forty-five-degree dive.

"As I got closer, I identified it as an Mi-8 'Hip' helicopter moving fairly quickly, very low to the desert floor," said Captain Sheehy. "I took aim and started shooting at about 8,000 feet, firing about 300 rounds of 30-mm. As I recovered from the dive and circled back around, I observed that the helicopter appeared to be smoking. Jay radioed that it looked like some of the bullets impacted the tail section. I rolled back into the dive [and] fired about 200 more rounds into the Hip, bottoming out of the dive at about 4,500 feet."

As Captain Sheehy climbed away, he glanced back and saw a cloud of black smoke rising from a new fire on the ground. That marked the point where the helicopter had gone down.

So, out of the 713 total A-10's ever built, 77-0205 & 81-1964 are the only ones to have Air-to-Air kills in combat, and they were both accomplished the old school way, with the gun.

Quotes are from Los Angeles Times & Air Force Magazine

DISCUSSION (7)

IDROVEAPICKUPTRUCK > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
02/28/2014 at 11:27

This...this...might be one of the most badass things I've ever read. The idea of shooting an aircraft out of the sky with that giant Gatling gun is so awesome.

ttyymmnn > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
02/28/2014 at 11:28

Excellent. So I was close. Does the A-10 have any air-to-air targeting capability, or were these shots simply line of sight?

FJ80WaitinForaLSV8 > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
02/28/2014 at 11:29

Great post!

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > ttyymmnn
02/28/2014 at 11:33

I assume they used the "pipper" on the HUD. This pic is from a video game, but it's accurate enough to show what I mean:

Kinja'd!!!

The round "target" in the lower area of the HUD is the pipper (as the pilots called it). A-10s (Both the A & C) carry AIM-9s for A2A as well.

AndersSim - V10'ING > ttyymmnn
02/28/2014 at 11:35

I might be able to answer it, but I'm really not sure. What I know, the A-10 is made for ground attack, and not air-to-air combat, well you probably know that too. And the gatling is primarily for safety measures if it should be under attack from other planes, altough it does also serve a porpouse on ground attack as it is quiet devastating, so my conclusion would be that is entirely from line of sight. Sorry for the long ramble.

Hi there > AndersSim - V10'ING
02/28/2014 at 14:08

Sir, I must inform you that that cannon was expressly designed to shred Soviet armor in Europe if the Cold War ever became hot. All other ancillary benefits of it's awesomeness are just that, ancillary.

AndersSim - V10'ING > Hi there
02/28/2014 at 14:32

As I said, I was far from a reliable source Sir, although, thanks for pointing it out!