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A-10 Warthog - The Chopper Popper
Manage episode 441222678 series 3555827
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The Thunderbird Overlook near the south end of the Academy is home to two static display aircraft: the Northrop T-38 Talon and the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt (aka the Warthog). ----more----
This particular A-10 is amazing. It is known as “The Chopper Popper.” Flying this plane on February sixth, 1991, Captain Robert Swain, Class of ’79, scored the first ever air-to-air victory in an A-10, shooting down an Iraqi Bo 105C helicopter during combat operations over Iraq. On September seventh, 2002, the A-10 was dedicated and took its place at the Overlook. The A-10 is one of three static display aircraft at the Academy with an enemy aircraft kill. Coincidentally, one of the others was also dedicated on September seventh, but eighteen years earlier. I am talking about the B-52 at the north end of the base, which shot down a MiG on Christmas eve 1972. But that’s a subject for a different Heritage Minute.
- Image Credit: Ted Robertson
The Heritage Minute Channel is a production of the Long Blue Line Podcast Network and presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association and Foundation
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