Whilst idling away an hour or so as an antidote to too much work, I came across the following rather impressive clip of an A10 Warthog gatling gun being test fired.
Whilst it may sound something like the foghorn on Bridlington pier, I really would not want to be at the pointy end of one of these :
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The gun itself is quite a beast :
The GAU-8 itself weighs 620 pounds (280 kg), but the complete weapon, with feed system and drum, weighs 4,029 pounds (1,828 kg) with a maximum ammunition load. It measures 19 ft 5 1⁄2 in (5.931 m) from the muzzle to the rearmost point of the ammunition system, and the ammunition drum alone is 34.5 inches (88 cm) in diameter and 71.5 inches (1.82 m) long.[5] Power for operating the gun is provided by twin 77 hp electric motors. The magazine can hold 1,174 rounds, although 1,150 is the typical load-out. Muzzle velocity when firing Armor-Piercing Incendiary rounds is 3,250 feet per second (990 m/s), almost the same as the substantially lighter M61 Vulcan‘s 20 mm round.
154 horse power of motors and 1.8 tonnes all up make for a pretty impressive cannon I think!
Indeed you would not! I examined one at close quarters many years ago at a RAF/USAF base open day. Did you know that the nose wheel leg is mounted to one side, as the gun runs the entire length of the plane?
The pilot also told us that the recoil is equivalent to the thrust of one engine – so they never hold the firing button down for more than fractions of a second!
microdave – it sounds more like a plane built around a gun 🙂 I read a little more on these things and they had to modify the engines to activate the ignitors when the gun is fired as the volume of exhaust gas produced caused flameouts in early tests – couple that with the recoil and it’s something of a beast indeed.
Blaaarp!
“Hey, Abdul, what was that?”
BLAAARP!
“Abdul?”