The US Air Force made history by landing a group of four A-10 Thunderbolt II's and a pair of C-146 Wolfhound transports on a Michigan highway. UPI. The exercise occurred on Michigan's Highway M-32 near Alpena. The highway was closed to accommodate the exercise.
My Comment:
Obviously not much here for a full blog post but the story was too cool to skip over regardless. Never thought I would see an A-10 land on a highway. Apparently this isn't the first time they have landed on highways before but it is the first time they have done it in the United States.
So why do this? A couple of reasons. First it's good training for the pilots who might have to make an emergency landing on a highway. That happens from time to time and it's not something that can be ignored. It's also a difficult landing that will be good practice.
The other reason is that if our airfields are destroyed these planes would have another place to land and take off from. That's a worst case scenario and at that point it would hardly matter as the war would largely be lost anyways but it's always good to have contingency plans.
Regardless, I thought the pictures and video was cool and worth sharing. It is definitely not something you see everyday.
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