Description

The A-10, a USAF product of the Cold War, was designed and deployed in the late 1970s to fight against the Warsaw Pact Forces in Central Europe. Instead it saw actual action under Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1991. Subsequently, it saw action again in both Bosnia and later in Kosovo. In all these actual combat situations, the A-10 vindicated the objectives of its designers.  Fairchild-Republic delivered one of the two-seater Night/Adverse Weather (N/AW) A-10 modifications to Edwards AFB for flight tests in 1979. The N/AW was 2000 pounds heavier than the single-seat version. Although the N/AW proved very capable, the U.S Air Force was not interested and committed to other aircraft instead.