The Modern Hog Guide

The A-10 Warthog Exposed

by Jake Melampy

Review by Craig Baumer on Apr 3 2008

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“The Modern Hog Guide, The A-10 Warthog Exposed” 120 pages softcover By Jake Melampy, Reid Air Publications, softcover

Jake Melampy’s 3rd book, 2nd in his “exposed” series is on the USAF Close Air Support aircraft, the A-10 Thunderbolt II. But that’s the last time we shall refer to it as that! Warthog lovers have been both needing and wanting a book on the Hog for a long time. There was Dana Bell’s Detail & Scale book from several years ago and the “Lock-on” from Verlinden not to mention the “In Action” series from Squadron.  While these books were nice and helpful to a modeler they were OLD!!!! From the mid 80’s the A-10 has seen several upgrades, and will continue to do so.

 Jakes new book on the Hog has got the modern Hog lover covered!! If you’re a bottom line kind of person let me tell you right now, this is THE BOOK on the A-10!!! Go buy it now! Jake has written this book with us, the modeler in mind the pictures are what we want, big, quite sharply printed and has the your modeler’s eye in mind.

As I said before, this book is aimed at the scale modeler and not the aviation historian. But Jake provides a short history of the A-10 and gives you some chronology on the mods that have been incorporated on the Hog. However please realize that those dates are very general and can vary for one particular airframe. Remember this is a guide not a technical order!!

The Modern Hog Guide is laid out in the same manner as his F-16 guide book. Beginning with the nose section ( With a load of pics on the GAU-8A both in and out of the jet) and ending with a section on the weapons the A-10 carries. This book should satisfy all your detailing needs.  

One section that really stands out is the cockpit section. Every version of the A-10 cockpit from the A, A+ and the new C is extensively covered. However, this is the MODERN hog guide and the photos show cockpits as they appear today, however some older configurations are illustrated.

The only thing I would have liked to have included is a table of contents. But the book is very well laid out and has the “section titles” on the upper right corner of the page. Also there are no shots of the Sargent Fletcher 600 gallon external tank. No big deal on that as they were not used by many A-10 units.

To sum up if you’re getting ready to do a model of an A-10 from Desert Storm onwards, this is the book to have! Actually buy two!!  You will wear out the first copy on your work bench so you will want a pristine version for your bookshelf!!!

Craig

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Photos and text © by Craig Baumer