An A-10 Thunderbolt II аssаult aircraft is merely ordinary; there are also “the most attractive A-10s,” as described by a squadron commander of the United States Air Force. He stated that those aircraft were adorned with the formidable shark teeth wаr paint.

Insider was informed by Lt. Col. Matthew Shelly, commander of the 74th Fighter Squadron and an accomplished A-10 pilot, that “not just any A-10s have shark teeth.” At Moody Air Force Base, shark’s teeth are only visible to the 74th and 75th Fighter Squadrons of the 23rd Fighter Group and the 76th Fighter Squadron, which was formerly affiliated with the 23rd but is now a Reserve unit.

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“There are other A-10 units that have nose art, but not the iconic shark face,” according to him.

An instance of this can be seen in 2015 when the 442nd Fighter Wing of the Air Force Reserve at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri fitted canines with tusks to their A-10 Warthogs in response to an aircraft structural maintenance technician’s inquiry, “Why don’t ours have teeth?”

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Because the iconic design is inextricably linked to the 74th, 75th, and 76th Fighter Squadrons’ heritage and history as the original three “Flying Tigers” squadrons of the 23rd Fighter Group, the shark’s maw paint job is exclusive to these squadrons.