I love it too! Its not pretty and fast but it gets the job done and brings the pilot home safe. The A-10 is not a "fly by wire plane" - it really wants to fly. Modern fighters are so unstable by design that a mere human could not manipulate the controls quickly enough to stay in flight. Computers must monitor and adjust the controls constantly at rates of sometimes thousands of corrections a second. But the long wing span of the A-10 gives it excellent lift and stability. The redundancy of hydraulic and electrical systems keep this bird flying while more sophisticated jets are especially vulnerable to electrical and hydraulic damage in combat. If all the control hydraulic systems fail the A-10 is still able to fly by cables. A-10s have also been known to keep flying and land safely with huge chunks of wing blown away in combat. It's one tough bird.
