By now many of you have seen
pictures floating around the web of Capt. Kim "KC" Campbell's
battle damaged A-10 from Operation Iraqi Freedom. She is also
featured in the Story section here on ARC. "KC"'s jet
was hit by ground fire while supporting troops north of Baghdad during
the war. She lost all hydraulics in her A/C and had to nurse the
jet home for an hour flying it in "reversionary" mode.
Reversionary mode is a
feature that only the A-10 has and allows the pilot to fly the jet using
only gears and pulleys to manipulate the control surfaces.
"KC" was able to nurse the jet home and just goes to show you
how tough both her and the A-10 are.
Capt. Campbell and Capt
"Tweeder" Twesme and Gary Bayer all provided references to the
Two Bobs for this sheet.
The first aircraft was
KC's jet on the mission stated above. Even though she was assigned
to the 75th FS, this is a 74th FS jet. This A/C features full
color wing and squadron insignia from the famous Flying Tigers of the
23rd Wing.
The second is with the Killer
CA-JUNS. This planes sports the more traditional or common
Warthog mouth rather than the Sharks mouth of KC's A-10. The
markings include some "Fleur de Lis" at the top of the tails
representing the French heritage of the Ca-juns.
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