Air Force pilot explains what it takes to be the top A-10 gun in the West
“You only have a couple minutes to open the envelope, look at the targets, figure out who’s doing what and then you have to get going.”
BY DAVID ROZA | PUBLISHED SEP 15, 2022 8:52 AM
Last weekend the Idaho Air National Guard hosted Hawgsmoke 2022, a one-of-a-kind biennial contest where 56 of the best A-10 Warthog attack plane pilots in the world sought to claim the title of best of the best. But how exactly did the competition work, and what did the pilots have to do to win? Lt. Col. John “Karl” Marks, who brought the prize of top overall attack pilot home to the 303rd Fighter Squadron, 442nd Fighter Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, explained what the meet was all about.
“I was joking with people coming back, like ‘well I assume the terrain out in Idaho is very beautiful but I wasn’t really looking at it,’” Marks said. “It was flashing by at 100 feet and I was just trying to make the timing and find the points and not hit the ground.”
This year’s Hawgsmoke competition centered on a single sortie where each team of four pilots flew through four stages: tactical, bombing, strafe, and visual reconnaissance. In the first stage, the tactical portion, the four-ship formation flew a predetermined route as low to the ground and as quickly as possible within safety limits, with bonus points for hitting certain checkpoints on time. In the second stage, bombing, each aircraft dropped three dummy unguided bombs on beat-up old tanks and trucks, earning points for accuracy. Like in the tactical stage, the pilots were on the clock: they had to hit the targets on time or else they would get a point deduction, and they did not have time for a second chance.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-a-10-warthog-hawgsmoke/
