Reloading An A-10 Takes WAY More Than You Think
Youtube / Military Archive
You Don’t Just Pop In A New Magazine.
This awesome video gives us an inside look at what it takes to reload the world’s largest jet aircraft gun, the GAU-8. It’ll give you some basic facts about the gun and the plane, but you’ll actually get to SEE exactly how the gun is reloaded after a mission. Trust us, it’s not as easy as other planes.
The reason for that is the sheer size of the gatling gun that was built into the plane. Well, actually it’s the other way around as people often say. The plane was built “around” the gun, as the aviation circle always says that the GAU-8 was the first gun in history to get its own plane.
The GFU-8/E 30 mm Ammunition Loading Assembly cart is made specifically for the A-10.
It takes a couple of Air Force guys (and gals) to reload this thing after a mission. As this behemoth of a gun weighs just under 620 lbs., you can only imagine what putting 30×173 mm armor piercing rounds into it entails. With the ammunition, feed system and drum the gun weighs 4,029 lbs.!
What they won’t tell you in the video is that the loading cart you’ll see is quite unique. Built by Syn-Tech, the linked tube carrier GFU-8/E Ammunition Loading Assembly cart is made specifically for the GAU-8 and of course the A-10, since no other plane is equipped with it.
