Comments by "Arthur Mosel" (@arthurmosel808) on "As Sweet as a Warthog! The Northrop YA-9A" video.

  1. The high mounted engines allowed it to be used from less developed airstrips without over concern of FOD; while the lower mounted engines required a more developed runway to avoid the issue. Additionally being widely separated with little crossconnection (as far as I remember) meant a single hit wouldn't leave the plane as vulnerable to being shot out of the sky by a single hit on a shared fuel and engine system. In other words the A-10 was designed as only for a specialist role, attacking Frontline ground targets, while the other was a more general fighter bomber. Why the Air Force fighter mafia hated it when force reductions dropped the number of aircraft available and they had to keep some around while reducing fighter and high speed fighter bombers that were still capable of air to air combat. Remember, the fighter mafia had taken over from the strategic bomber mafia due to the nature of the Vietnam War and movement away from nuclear weapons use.. Remember the repurposing of the B-52 for the ARC LIGHT conventional bombing; an experiment that was tried in the early 50's with the B-36 which actually carried more bombs; but jets were the thing and big propeller driven were out (SAC was only about nuts then.
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