Wilcox BOSS Xe

A-9 & A-10 Air Test Center Briefing

I’ve got to admit, when I see the A-9 I think “Frogfoot”.

8 Responses to “A-9 & A-10 Air Test Center Briefing”

  1. WagenCAV says:

    Reminds me of the old A7s I used to see at the Ohio Air Guardbase near my house when I was a kid.

    We used to sit at the end of the flight line and watch them do touch n gos. One of the myriad reasons I ended up joining the military in the first place.

  2. WagenCAV says:

    It was definitely more Army looking than the F16s they ended up replacing them with. The 16s had more style and were cooler looking but I still have a soft spot for the sound and slow speed of those A7s zooming around

  3. Brett says:

    The Air Force did actually get it right for once, picking the A-10 over the A-9 in the A-X program.

  4. Tom says:

    I live near the last Ohio Air Guard base to host the A7 D’s and the last base that I know of to fly the plane. I loved watching those planes roaring around in the sky over Clark county. It always looked like a whole lot O’ plane coming at you.

    • Jeff S says:

      Didn’t Rickenbacker phase them out at the same time?

    • SSD says:

      I grew up with the F100, A7 and F16. My dad was a full time ANG technician.

      • AbnMedOps says:

        I remember the airshows in the late 70’s until about ’82, had the entire “Century Series” of fighters. F-100, F-101 WA ANG), F-102, F-104, F-105, F-106 (MT ANG). Plus F-4, F-111, A-7, B-52, B-57 Canberra, Navy F-8, A-6, E-6, O-2, U-2, SR-71, C-123, C-130, C-5, C-141, KC-135…Pretty much everything that fly over Vietnam. T-2, T-28, T-29, T-33, T-34, T-37, T-38, T-41. F-14. F-15 (brand new in 1977, with a factory delivery sticker still glued on), F-16, A-10 (green camo), Ancient KC-97 tanker, with 4 huge radials plus jet pods (TX ANG). B-66 (US Army markings! -operated by a contractor involved in testing Patriot missile system). Ancient F9F Panther – a primitive Korean Navy war jet, still operated at China Lake for some test program.

        It is daunting to think of the logistics and % investment in spare parts involved in maintaining so very many different aircraft types in service. Once the new generation of aircraft began entering service the old types very very rapidly were phased out and were pretty much gone by the early 80’s. But it was a cool time to be a kid and go to the airshows!