Sexy as hell, but still not the best for the roll it's being put to.
Posted on 04/28/2015 8:24:45 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
The Air Force will send some perfectly fine fighter jets to the boneyard or delay its F-35 Lightning II rollout for a year if Congress blocks retirement of the A-10 Thunderbolt, according to a document recently provided to military oversight committees.
The tradeoffs would occur at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, due to limited number of personnel to maintain the A-10s, F-16 Fighting Falcons and the first advanced F-35 joint strike fighters slated to arrive later this year, the service told lawmakers.
The Air Force and Congress have been grappling over the future of the A-10, known as the Warthog, for the past year. Hill recently unveiled plans to mothball 18 of the aircraft. The service wants to eliminate the close-air-support aircraft to save money but the House Armed Services Committee said it will vote this week on a draft defense budget that will bar the move.
“The Air Force, if compelled to retain the A-10, does not possess a sufficient number of experienced maintainers to sustain the original Hill AFB conversion plan [to] stand up [a] new F-35 fighter squadron and then convert two F-16 units,” the service wrote to the committee in an unclassified talking paper obtained by Stars and Stripes. The undated document was recently provided to House and Senate armed service committees, congressional staff said.
The F-16s were to be relocated to other bases – Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and Fort Wayne Air National Guard Base in Indiana – to replace A-10 units and make room for the F-35s.
Instead, the jets would be sent to the “boneyard” storage area at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, the service said.
If lawmakers try to block F-16s from the boneyard, the lack of qualified maintenance personnel would delay the F-35 from flying at Hill for “at least a year,” it said.
The Air Force has repeatedly asked Congress to support the A-10 retirement, which it says will save about $4.2 billion over the next four years and allow the fleet to be modernized. The A-10 has been flying since the 1970s and is now deployed in Iraq and Europe.
Lt. Col. Christopher Karns, an Air Force spokesman, said it is premature to speculate on what actions the service will take before Congress hashes out the annual defense budget.
“The Air Force has actively explored a range of options to address its maintainer shortage,” Karns wrote in an email. “An inability to divest A-10s will impact the ability to provide experienced maintainers to support the F-35 mission.”
The chairman of House Armed Services released his draft of the annual defense budget Monday and it included a measure fully funding the A-10 program, though it would allow the Air Force to mothball a maximum of 18 aircraft.
However, Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., said she plans to introduce an amendment Wednesday that will prohibit any retirement of the aircraft.
According to the terms of
The Army may not use armed fixed wing aircraft. They are limited to helicopters and liaison aircraft. Army paratroopers? Dropped from AF planes. The Navy and Marines cannot use AF planes because AF Planes don't have sturdy enough airframes and landing gear (i.e., heavy) to land on carriers.
The USAF has never been truly enthusiastic about Close Air Support. That's because it is usually best done with slow, very maneuverable, heavily armed, and armored airplanes with straight wings that get shot at a lot. Think. Who's going to get the pretty blonde cheerleader? The sweaty bald guy in the dump truck, or the dude in the Corvette.
The A-10 has always been an embarrassment to the USAF because it is slow, ugly, relatively cheap and has accomplished thousands of successful sorties. The F-35 is slow and ugly, but incredibly expensive, and has yet to find a mission that it can actually accomplish successfully. It has a wonderful PR and Sales Campaign. The glossy brochures and the animated PowerPoints are (or were) leading to great overseas sales.... then the buyers started wising up. Even the Canadians are having second thoughts ... and the Australians ... and the Italians (who now figured out that they can afford maybe two ... by the year 2035 when this puppy is ready for production.
The F4U Corsair was essentially the navalized version of the P-47. Both planes were built around the same engine -- the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 18-cyl Double Wasp.
The powerful engine mounted such a large propeller that the Corsair employed gull wings to a.) allow for shorter, sturdier landing gear for carrier landings and b.) provide clearance for the propeller. This design feature was unnecessary for the P-47.
And, indeed, in the hands of the U.S. Marines, the F4U Corsair was one of the pre-eminent ground attack aircraft of its time -- its effective combat life extending from WW II thru Korea. It continued to be active as a ground attack aircraft in the French colonial wars thru the mid-fifties.
Give the A-10s to the Army, they will use them and love ‘em.
Nah, B-25. Carries a nice big bomb load, lots and lots and lots of .50 cal machine guns and does a heck of an impression of a heavy fighter in a pinch.
While the production tooling may be gone, the blueprints are not.
What was made once, can be made again. A print, a sample part....no problem. I see it all the time for planes that are no longer in production.
keyboard spew alert
I think the A-10 would be a perfect tool to spoil the ISIS videos of a “victory” parade of their armed pickup trucks.
Time to retire a bunch of Pentagon cookie pushers
bookmark
” A-10s in Vietnam in the sixties”
Sorry but that is technically incorrect. The A-10s weren’t available until the mid-70s.
No he didn’t.
We have to have the A-10’s. We have to have the F-35’s. Why is the Air Force even talking about this and how rich is it that they are, while no one else in the Leviathan ever even has discussions like this ?
They prattle on about the assistant deputy assistant directors that can’t be cut and they’d take a chance on losing domination of the skies and inability to provide troop support?
Sexy as hell, but still not the best for the roll it's being put to.
He probably meant the Sandy. That is my best guess anyways.
Why not transfer all the A-10s out of the Air Force and into the Army and Marines?
Agreed.
The A-10 has had a long and distinguished career. The 21st Century foray into the deserts and warfare against forces with little in the way of anti-aircraft capability has extended its life significantly.
The A-10 would be borderline useless in a conflict against a modern enemy with modern air-defense capabilities. The F-35 is hugely unproven, but the loyalty the A-10 has engendered with its excellent performance in Iraq and Afghanistan and its high-visibility to the troops on the ground has become an obstacle to a modern air-power military.
LOLOLOL!!!!! just damn...
Simple answer. The A10 is a close air support, ground combat weapons system. Turn it over to the Army and the Marines who fight ground wars. They love it, and it has been a huge key in their combat operations.
Let the Air Force do more the strategic air combat missions.
Let the Army/Marine commanders conduct ground operations.
I agree, keep the A-10 flying and let the F-35 pick up the slack. Time for more Warthog Love.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.