A-10 Warthogs
The Air Force Is Re-Winging A-10s After All
More than a third of the service’s Warthogs risked
retirement without new wings.
Jan 30, 2018
It's official: The U.S. Air Force will buy new wings for
aging A-10 Warthogs that risked a one way trip to the boneyard. The Air Force
has made clear its intention to keep the A-10 flying after concerns surfaced
that the service was taking advantage of the issue to get rid of the iconic
close air support plane.
Earlier this month, a Pentagon official in charge of the
A-10 program announced an effort to re-wing 110 of the jets “was
not going to happen.” Of the 280 A-10s still in U.S. Air Force service, 173
have received new wings to keep them flying into the 2030s. The original
re-winging contract with Boeing was for 242 sets of wings, but the contract
ended when it was no longer cost-effective for the company, and the Boeing
production line is closing later this year.
That left at least 110 A-10s high and dry without new
wings, a state that threatened to ground them for good unless a solution was
found, reducing the number of A-10 squadrons from nine to six. The Air Force,
focused on getting the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter up and running, didn’t
include a new wing contract it its 2018 budget. Congress, however added funding
a new wing assembly line and four new wings to get it warmed up.
Now, the Air Force has committed to buying more wings.
According to DoDBuzz General Mike Holmes, the head of the Air Force’s Air
Combat Command, announced
last week at a Washington D.C. think tank that the service will buy
more wings beyond the initial four. Exactly how many wings will “depend on a
Department of Defense decision and (the Air Force’s) work with Congress”.
The U.S. Air Force has tried to retire the A-10 since the
1991 Persian Gulf War, allocating its mission to the F-16, and now the F-35A.
Retiring the A-10 would free up $4 billion over five years, enough to fund
about 44 F-35As, as well as free up nine squadrons of personnel who could be
reassigned to other projects. The A-10’s popularity with the public, ground
troops who received support in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Congress have
repeatedly saved it from an early retirement.
Critics outside the service believe that the F-35A is
ill-suited to replace the A-10, and that no other plane has the firepower,
protection and performance characteristics that make it a viable replacement.
The F-35A lacks the GAU-8/A 30-millimeter gun for close air support missions,
the large number of hardpoints for carrying a variety of ordnance, and the
armor and redundant systems to keep it flying after a hit.
Original post: popularmechanics.com
Published on Jan 26, 2018
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A-10 Thunderbolt: Details
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