fallon
This question brings back a memory! My first involvement with flight sims was over 10 years ago on the old Prodigy Falcon 3 board. It was there that I first was asked this question, and I can still remember the response when I told the guy that this was, pardon the pun, hogwash!
He insisted that the A-10 would slow down and stall out if the gun were fired in a long burst...there was nothing that I could do to change his mind...you see, he had heard this from a guy down the street who had cousin who went to school with someone who saw it on Wings...know what I mean??!!
Since then, I've seen this issue come up again and again. There are those armchair physicists who will whip out their formulas to show anyone how Mr Newton will prove this to be the case.
Now, I'm no pointy head scientist...just somebody with 6 years and 1100 hours in the jet...but I never stalled when firing the gun...not even once!
To be thruthful, I never watched the airspeed indicator to see if I was losing any speed. The idea would have been silly.
Just before writing this reply, I looked at some HUD film of strafe passes...in each case, the jet actually gains a couple of knots during the time the gun is firing...probably because of the dive and the fact that the jet was accelerating when the trigger was pulled.
So...is it possible that the A-10 would experience a deceleration when firing the gun. Yes, I suppose...if the gun were fired long enough under conditions favorable to the situation (level flight, stable airspeed, maybe idle power, etc).
While I can't argue with F=MA, all I can say is that under normal operating conditions, this consequence of gun recoil in the A-10 is a non-issue.
Andy