National Science Foundation A-10 Warthog

Yes, you read that right. Back around 2011, the National Science Foundation announced a grant to refurbish a retired A-10 Warthog, and convert it into a storm chaser. Prior to then the go to storm chasing aircraft was a T-28, which had been retired in 2005. This left no way to get measurements inside a supercell thunderstorm.

In 2010, the grant was authorized, for the 2011 year. In 2012, the Air Force agreed to loan the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, a single mothballed A-10 airframe. The Center for Interdisciplinary Remote Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) would fly it in coordination with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. The GAU-8 will be removed, and multiple air sensors will be installed. Zivko Aeronautics was working on restoring and modifying the aircraft in 2014.



www.cirpas.org...
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com...
www.popularmechanics.com...

Instead of Thunderbolt II (2), they should call it Lightningbolt.

Just sayin'

Do the research correctly, and they could help update the instruments systems for the A-10, while doing the storm-chasing. I'd imagine they are going to need to see land and ocean maps, along with road and river data, as well as radar maps of raindrop size and water humidity.

So is this flying? Must have the ability to carry quite the payload taking that gun out.

a reply to: Stngray

I haven't been able to find anything on it other than it was in modification in 2014. It should be pretty close to flying if it's not already, depending on how rough it was at the start.

I'd be kind of interested to see how much the flight characteristics change with the gun and armour (if it's gone too) removed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Apparently as of May of last year they were still having issues. The aircraft was flying when the AF handed it over so getting it in flying condition shouldn't have been the issue.

Downloadable .PDF on the project

a reply to: LeviB

They were supposedly loading up the empty space with science gear so there might not be much noticeable difference.

Ah, that does make sense. I suppose it wouldn't be that valuable to fly an empty plane into a storm.