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Jagala A-10 Landings - Its that time of year again !


Tiger331

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Hi Folks

 

Another action packed day out at the Jagala austere landing site here in North Central Estonia. The Maryland ANG were out in full force during the day completing their annual re-certification for road landings. Unfortunately all did not go to plan with the last wave (see below)

 

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BEFORE: The 'Ill fated' '108' (first aircraft of the last wave to complete road landing qualification) completes a low flyover prior to conducting a go around for the qualifying road landing - note the red/white barriers in the background....... 

 

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AFTER......Unfortunately the pilot of '108' miscalculated his approach for landing and took out several of the aforementioned barriers with his main undercarriage and a round road sign with the lower flaperon....Note the large 'bite' !. This incident put paid to the rest of the landing procedure. After safety checks the aircraft departed four hours later, making the short flight back to Amari AB with the undercarriage lowered    

 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my attempts to record the days activities.

 

Postscript: It's interesting what one can pick up after a deeper analysis of photos.....I've noticed the rather pronounced 'circles' on the forward fuselage of '718' (no doubt caused by oily RBF tags attached to the inlet bungs).....these are a lot more evident than those on '719' or '682' which are barely discernible. I suspect it would be a challenge to reproduce these on a model but it would be very satisfying.   

 

 

 

 

 

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Some amazing pics, thanks for sharing. Loving that after colliding with ground furniture and taking a fair size chunk out of the wing 4 hours later it flew home!!!! Try doing that with an F35!

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Thanks for your comments, chaps.

 

Yes, this is the third year that US ANG A-10s have conducted these road landing exercises here in Estonia. There are a number of Soviet-era road runways, originally designed to handle the MiG-23s that were previously based here, including the one at Jagala some 40km East of Tallinn, the capital. The Maryland ANG are twinned with Estonia (there is a similar system in the other Baltic States) and they initiated the road landing exercises in 2015; they were, of course, regular events in Germany during the height of the Cold War but like many other skills, tailed off with the advent of expeditionary operations elsewhere. Last year two different ANG A-10 units conducted the landings. This year, and having grown with confidence, the Maryland ANG started to put the jets down in quick succession, with two on the ground at any one time, having opened up one or two of the adjacent dispersals to enable the turnaround checks to be done to the side rather than at the end of the runway. The roadway signage on this section of the highway is, of course, removable although Murphy's Law intervened this year with the pilot of '108' taking out the only sign that had remained up (granted it was just outside the authorised landing zone so it was not an oversight on the part of the local highway authorities). The other notable thing this year was that the jets carried more ordnance.....last year they were largely sans stores of any type. Anyway, I'm pleased you like the photos.

 

       

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A great set of images, my friend. The mission markings on one of the Hogs tells a story on its own.

 

Looking at the shot of the damaged A-10 reminds me of a photo of a Hog that crashed in Iraq some years ago. The impact of the wheels-up landing had caused the barrels of the cannon to come loose and they were sticking out by one or two feet from the front of the aircraft. That landing must have rattled the pilot's dentures a little...

 

Thanks for sharing with us.

 

Chris.   

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Here's a few more, including a close up of the tail and nacelle markings on the Maryland ANG jets. I've also noticed, having gone through a few more photos today that some (including some of those in this thread) are sporting 'low visibility' moustaches on their noses.

 

Thanks again for your comments

 

   

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Excellent pictures! Thank you. I was waiting for an ebay auction to wind down so I could snipe it at the last moment until I got distracted by your photos!:doh: I missed bidding on the item. Anyway,  love the Hog can't resist any pictures of them!

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