From the book “What if?” by Randall Munroe:
> The GAU-8 Avenger fires up to 60 1-pound bullets a *second*. It produces almost 5 tons of recoil force, which is crazy considering that it’s mounted in a type of plane (the A-10 “Warthog”) whose two engines produce only 4 tons of thrust each. If you put two of them in one aircraft, and fired both guns forward while opening up the throttle, the guns would win and you’d accelerate backward.
I guess I never really thought about it until just now, but… do pilots have to compensate for the recoil when they fire their weaponry?
How *does* – or doesn’t – the recoil of their ordnance affect the planes mid-flight?
In: 4
There is a tradeoff in armed aircraft. The larger the bullets and the faster they fire, the less ammunition they can store. The A-10’s GAU-8 cannon can only fire for about 18 seconds, total. During this time, while the pilot will definitely notice the force, it will not have a huge impact on the airplane simply because it is so brief.
Of course, no pilot should be holding down the trigger for that long.
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