The Air Force
Now Plans To Keep The A-10 Warthog Flying Indefinitely
Andrew P
Collins Yesterday 2:04pm
The A-10
Thunderbolt AKA “Warthog” is a flying farm tractor. Slow, brutish, but reliable
as the tide and endearingly indestructible and incredibly effective.
Strategists have feared that the jet will be axed in favor of funding the F-35,
but the U.S. Air Force recently confirmed that it plans to keep the A-10 flying
“indefinitely.”
While the Air
Force is theoretically supposed to be diverting the A-10’s operating expenses
to feed the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the people in charge are now planning to
keep the plane running.
“They have
re-geared up, we’ve turned on the depot line, we’re building it back up in
capacity and supply chain,” Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Ellen
Pawlikowski told AviationWeek in a interview. “Our command, anyway, is
approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely.”
While the
beancounters and product planners are trying to push the A-10 off the board,
Materiel Command is going to keep on keeping the planes in peak condition,
which will give the A-10 it’s best chance of proving its worth over and over
again.
And it seems
to be working– the A-10 posted a five percent increase in its availability rate
from 2014 to 2015, and the Air Force seems to keep postponing its demise.
The F-35
Joint Strike Fighter is supposed to be a do-it-all combat aircraft that can
engage other planes in the sky, make long-range bombing runs and come in low
and slow to support ground troops. It hasn’t gotten off to a great start, to
put it lightly, and so far its effectiveness in any of those roles has yet to
be truly tested in combat. That last move especially is the A-10’s specialty,
and a big part of the reason the plane is so beloved by servicemen and women.
To embattled
soldiers on the ground, the only sound more reassuring than an A-10’s engine is
the BRRRT of its massive front cannon providing you with cover fire. At least
that’s the prevailing lore you’ve probably already heard about this plane
already.
The F-35 on
the other hand, has established a reputation of being over budget and
underperforming.
“My approach
from a sustainment perspective is to approach this as if we’re just going to
continue to keep these airplanes operating.” Pawlikowski continued in her
AviationWeek interview. “We will wait as the dust settles as far as what the
strategy will be; that discussion continues to go on and I think it always will
as we look at the fact that our demand signal for our airplanes continues to be
high.”
As it stands
on paper, the A-10 fleet is apparently slated to start standing down in fiscal
year 2018 and parked in boneyards by 2020. But Secretary Deborah Lee James has
already told AviationWeek that the service is “considering keeping the jets in
inventory longer than planned.”
To that end
the Air Force is said to be in the process of putting new wings on its fleet of
A-10s under a $2 billion contract with Boeing that was written up in 2007 and
supposed to keep the planes going to 2028.
It sounds
like the next big hurdles for the A-10 are the Air Force’s fiscal year 2018
budget and a defense policy bill that includes a provision to keep the A-10
active. Specifically, Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally wants to put one
last barrier between the A-10 and retirement: a jet-vs-jet flyoff against the
F-35.
We’ll be
there with popcorn.
Original post:
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com
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