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Vince “Snapper” Sherer is a retired Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt “Warthog” fighter pilot. Over a 20 year career, he flew 300 combat missions and logged 1,300 combat flight hours in the A-10 and MC-12 across four deployments to Afghanistan.
Vince supported troops in contact at danger close range, at times without a wingman, over a decade of evolving combat and technological change. He’s the personification of the A-10 pilot and gives an inside look at what combat felt like from the cockpit.
0:00 Intro.
1:57 - Call sign “Snapper” comes from the Sensitive New Age Pilot moniker (Urban Dictionary link).
4:57 - The inspiration to fly came from time with a sibling and watching Top Gun.
7:02 - A key tragic and defining moment with a significant accident in the family.
10:32 - Flying for the Navy or Air Force?
12:22 - Competition and path to get from college into the aircraft you want.
22:17 - Stereotype of the “Hawg” (A-10) pilots, F-16s, F-15s, etc.
24:20 - Hardest part of his Air Force career at Sheppard AFB.
27:22 - First flight in the A-10. “The better your preparation, the less your anxiety.”
31:50 - T-38 second hardest aircraft to land in the Air Force (hardest is the U-2).
33:24 - How to do a checkride in a single-seat aircraft?
36:52 - First combat flight was September 2005 in Afghanistan in a Squadron led by now Senator Martha McSally.
40:40 - Normal weapons load in combat on an A-10.
42:49 - A standard engagement planning and execution.
51:22 - First engagement while supporting a convoy that hit an IED in southern Afghanistan in Winter 2005.
57:01 - Engagement in 2014 on fourth deployment supporting Wing Staff at Bagram AFB and flying with 303rd Fighter Squadron from Kansas City.
1:01:01 - Near fratricide incident in combat until something didn’t feel right.
1:07:11 - Carrying an American flag on each flight.
1:09:34 - Being in a unit with the first female A-10 Fighter Squadron Commander who flew in combat (Martha McSally).
1:13:32 - Advice on when to start flying in your life.
1:15:21 - Would you do it again?
1:16:39 - A great story about an A-10, a photograph, and the “south end of an unneutered bulldog.”
1:19:51 - “I was so fired up that I got to go fly a jet again one more time.”
