This GoPro video will transform you into a crew chief about to launch an A-10 Warthog!

June 6, 2016 Military Aviation
David Cenciotti

This video will bring you as close to prepare the A-10 Warthog for launch as you can get without actually being a crew chief.

The following crazy cool footage was produced by 74th and 75th AMU (Aircraft Maintenance Unit) for the Hawg Smoke 2016 crew chief launch competition.

Scored off of strafing, high-altitude dive-bombing, low-angle high-delivery, Maverick missile precision, and crew chief activities, Hawg Smoke is a biannual competition that gathered 13 teams, flying 48 A-10Cs, between Jun. 2-4, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.

The clip below shows a “Hog” with the 74th Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, being prepared for launch from the crew chief point of view.

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About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a freelance journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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3 Comments

  1. By using his fist to close the ladder door with out pressing the ladder open button can cause damage to the Ladder Door solenoid. Also, I missed engine start, must of edited that bit out. Anyone know who won Hogsmoke 2016? I didn’t get a chance to ask my Ops if they did.

  3. That guy, readying the plane for takeoff, has a fascinating job. I envy him.

    Depressing though, to realize that there are people in the USAF—policy makers even—so political, so stupid, or so indifferent to combat troops that they want to get rid of this marvelous war machine, pretending to replace it with a fragile toy like the F-35.

    I don’t think I will ever understand that particular kind of cowardice, stupidity, malice or whatever it is.

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