COBI A-10 Thunderbolt II Warthog Set 5856

COBI's A-10 Thunderbolt II Warthog is a 1:48 model built from 667 blocks, 34 cm long with a 37 cm wingspan, produced under licence from Northrop Grumman in the green-and-grey scheme used during Operation Desert Storm, with the weapons fit to match. A simplified pilot figure, a brick stand and a nameplate are included. All markings are printed; no stickers.

The aeroplane was designed around the gun

Most aircraft carry a gun. The A-10 is a gun that carries an aircraft.

The GAU-8 Avenger is roughly six metres long — about the length of a small car — and with a full drum of 1,174 rounds it weighs close to 1.8 tonnes, around a sixth of the aircraft empty. Fairchild laid out the airframe around it. The gun sits on the centreline, which meant the nosewheel had to be offset to the left to make room, and the recoil is roughly equal to one of the engines' thrust.

It fires depleted uranium rounds the size of a milk bottle at about 65 a second, which produces the noise the aircraft is known by.

The bathtub

The pilot sits inside a tub of titanium armour, up to 38 mm thick, weighing over 500 kg, built to stop 23 mm shells. The flight controls are duplicated mechanically so the aircraft can be flown with all hydraulics shot away. The engines are mounted high and far back, where the wings and tail shield them from ground fire and the exhaust is masked from heat-seeking missiles.

Everything about it assumes being hit. A-10s have come home from Iraq with an engine gone, half a wing missing and hundreds of holes.

715 were built between 1975 and 1984, and the US Air Force has been trying to retire the type since the 1980s without success, because nothing else does the job.

Specifications

Pieces: 667 · Figures: 1 · Scale: 1:48 · Licensed by Northrop Grumman · No stickers
Model dimensions: 34 × 37 × 10 cm (13.4 × 14.5 × 3.9 in)