“The engine is mounted slightly transversely in the fuselage, with an 8-degree misalignment from the aircraft’s longitudinal axis.
“The engine exhaust is turned back to the longitudinal axis by a curved composite tailpipe. A composite tailpipe was to help get the gun recoil reaction closer to the aircraft lateral center of gravity (CG) location, the gun is sub-merged as deeply as practical into the right side of the fuselage. Also, the fuselage is not centered about the aircraft centerline, but is offset to the left by three inches. This results in the firing barrel of the gun being only about 18 inches from the lateral CG”
Talk about thinking outside of the box!
The Oxford Dictionary says the abbreviation for “Thinking Outside the Box” is
RUTAN!
The big feature was to put the engine air intake on one side of the fuselage and the muzzles of the guns on the other.
IIRC, early A-10s had problems with gun exhaust causing the engine to flame out. Not a lot of fun while in a dive on a target!
“The A-10 engines were initially susceptible to flameout when subjected to gases generated in the firing of the gun. When the GAU-8 is being fired, the smoke from the gun can make the engines stop, and this did occur during initial flight testing.[2] Gun exhaust is essentially oxygen-free, and is certainly capable of causing flame-outs of gas turbines. The A-10 engines now have a self-sustaining combustion section. When the gun is fired the igniters come on to reduce the possibility of a flame-out.” - Wikipedia