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The US Air Force has been trying for years to retire its aging fleet of A-10 Warthog planes. During a Thursday hearing, the service secretary said the aircraft "doesn't scare China." "It still has some limited utility, but we have to get on with things," Frank Kendall told Congress. The US Air Force has long butted heads with Congress over plans for the retirement of its aging A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft — flying cannons also known as Warthogs, and on Thursday, service leadership stressed to legislators that it's time to move on because the warplane is less useful than...

Will no one rid us of this troublesome A-10 ‘Warthog’? The United States Air Force (USAF) has spent almost two-thirds of its existence as an independent service trying to get rid of the A-10, one of its most well-known aircraft. But has the Air Force finally given up? It is odd to think that a fifty-year-old aircraft might have more job security now than at any time in its long history, but it does seem that the Warthog now has a relatively secure space in the USAF fleet.

A typical misconception is that the military always seeks to enlarge its force, obtain more equipment and keep what it has – while it is lawmakers who want to cut budgets and force a downsizing of ships and planes as cost-cutting measures. However, when it comes to the A-10 Thunderbolt II – known affectionately as the Warthog – it is the United States Air Force that is being “forced” to retain an aircraft the service would like to retire.

The GAU-8 Avenger is one impressive weapon system and the foundation of the A-10 Warthog, despite its age, won’t go away anytime soon. Used for combat during the time of the Gulf War in 1991, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt – also known commonly as the “Warthog” – destroyed more than 900 Iraqi tanks, some 2,000 other military vehicles, and approximately 1,200 artillery pieces. The aircraft also reportedly shot down two Iraqi helicopters.

The A-10 Warthog have served the military a long time by providing close air support for our ground troops with great precisions. The following wild video highlights this attributes against a group of Talibans. This video shows you the awesome power of its 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger is a hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-type auto cannon weapon system. This gun can accurately place more than 60 rounds of 30 mm ammunition on target per second. This all happens asynchronously from nearly a mile in the air. Check out the A-10 destroy Taliban video here.

THE A10 WARTHOG AND THE U2 SPYPLANE I watched the late rebroadcast version of NBC news Monday night with host Lester Holt at an American air base in South Korea. Oldies are goodies as both the A10 Warthog and the cold war spy U2 plane are both used there and Holt gave us a close report of both.

If you’re a grunt and seeing an A-10 Warthog flying over your head its a pretty awesome feeling. When a grunt is in trouble, then it is a bless full sight. In this sighting its a nice day in whatever Star Wars desert town basically in the middle of nowhere that these grunts had to patrol. This day no guns blazing, no bombs going off and this day things were chill. If that wasn't enough, these grunts got treated to not one, but two Sic A-10 flybys. One went right up to them, banking very low over their position. The...

After more than four decades in service, the A-10 Warthog is due for a replacement. So says the U.S. Air Combat Command. What's more, ACC says it's already "thinking about" fielding such a replacement. But what might that replacement be? Last week, we got a clue. As reported by Reuters, the Air Force has recently begun evaluating Textron's Scorpion fighter jet as a potential 21st-century replacement for the 20th-century Warthog.

Defense Spending: The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block. We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union. We've also mentioned the phasing out of the A-10 Thunderbolt,...

(IraqiNews.com) On Thursday, a local source in Nineveh province said, that the ‘Wild Boar’ aircraft which belongs to the U.S. Air Force has carried out four air strikes that killed and wounded dozens of ISIS elements, adding that the aircraft sparked panic in the ranks of ISIS. The source said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “The U.S. aircraft A-10 Warthog (Wild Boar) carried out, at dawn today, four air strikes on gatherings of ISIS elements in the village of Sultan Abdullah in Makhmour district, southeast Mosul,” adding that, “The raids resulted in the death and injury of dozens of ISIS...

America’s $400 billion, top-of-the-line aircraft can’t see the battlefield all that well. Which means it’s actually worse than its predecessors at fighting today’s wars. When the Pentagon’s nearly $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter finally enters service next year after nearly two decades in development, it won’t be able to support troops on the ground the way older planes can today. Its sensors won’t be able to see the battlefield as well; and what video the F-35 does capture, it won’t be able to transmit to infantrymen in real time. Versions of the new single-engine stealth fighter are set to...

A large association of battlefield target spotters has written to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to oppose the planned retirement of A-10 Warthog strike jets — a debate that now encompasses the “friendly fire” deaths of five American soldiers in Afghanistan. The A-10 endorsement from the Tactical Air Control Party Association is significant because, outside of the Warthog’s pilots themselves, perhaps no other warriors know its ability to protect ground troops under fire better than the ground controllers who guide it to enemy targets. ... The five fatalities occurred on June 9, when a B-1B strategic bomber — a planned replacement...

Three US A-10 Warthogs Hit By Iraqi Missiles -CNN NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Three U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthogs were hit Tuesday by Iraqi surface-to-air missiles - two of the pilots landed safely, the third pilot ejected and was rescued, the Cable News Network reported. The ejection and rescue of the pilot who landed in the desert south of Baghdad had been reported earlier. CNN said the pilot of a second Warthog managed to land safely at a base in southern Iraq and the third U.S. plane landed at a base, which under military restrictions, can only be identified as...