“By scrapping the A-10, the Air Force is guaranteeing more Gold Star families will be created,” according to Charlie Keebaugh, president of the largest group of tactical-air-control party airmen.
The 2024 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (pdf) allows the Air Force to retire 42 A-10 Thunderbolt 2s in 2024, with the remaining 220 or so to be retired with prejudice by 2029. This retiring of the A-10 “Warthog” is predicated on the fantastical disproven idea that the A-10, which to this day is the most cost-effective plane in the Air Force’s inventory, can be replaced by the F-35.
This power play by the Air Force is just another chapter in the long, ongoing saga of senior Air Force leaders using every tactic, including underhanded tactics, threats, and rigged testing, to justify retiring the A-10. It certainly isn't about improving our country’s close air support (CAS) capabilities that have saved countless American lives. Instead, it's about converting A-10 maintainers to F-35 maintainers in order to satisfy the F-35s endless, ravenous appetite for maintenance and support. And it's about killing off the plane that will continue to show up the F-35 as long as it continues to fly...
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I guess China fears the Warthog and ordered it to be retired with prejustice which I assume means to destroy.
Morons…
The F-35 remains unproven in any type of battle. The A-10 has over 50 years of proven magnificence in battle. I just can't see the F-35 performing well in a close ground support role, nor can it take much in the way of ground fire. And forget about landing it on unprepared runways like the A-10 can.
The A-10 is one mean machine. Wish I could fly one.
What's needed is a modern redesign. Use new F130 engines from B-52 upgrade. Make it pilot-optional - ability to fly as drone. Maintain existing overall form-factor and cannon capabilities. Modern design should result in slightly increased payload limits, perhaps add more hard points. Ditch the Maverick and other ancient payloads, with focus on current/next generation smaller form-factor replacements.
Not a drone. The whole point of the A-10 is human SA. Talking directly to the boots on the ground, seeing their immediate problem, and the next three, and building an instant, on the fly, strategy to deal with them. Can't do that from a cube in NV... as always, Warriors, on scene, are the best answer to solving an immediate threat.
Idiots whistling Dixie! To date, no aircraft on earth beats the A-10 in it's assigned mission! Since the F-35 has a smaller pilot visibility envelope than a B-17 top gunner, the F-35 would have to fly it's whole ground support mission, inverted to be of any use. Granted, it's not much faster than an A-10, and has the perpetual IR flare running out the back, they should have called the F-35, the clay pidgeon!