Posted on 03/20/2015 7:12:27 AM PDT by C19fan
Eventually, the U.S. Air Force wants to replace the low and slow-flying A-10 Warthog with the fast-moving F-35 stealth fighter. But itll take years before the troubled jet fighters are ready for duty.
In the meantime, the Air Force still needs a plane for dedicated close air support missions something the A-10 excels at. So what does the flying branch propose? Not keeping the Warthog.
Instead, the Air Force wants to replace the Warthog with a modified F-16 fighter jet an old concept that failed to live up to expectations decades ago. The F-16s would fill in temporarily until the F-35s can take over.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Obama has replaced the U.S. Air Force top Brass with Morons
Don't doubt for one second that Valerie Jarrett and her Muslim Brotherhood aides have had a hand in the sunsetting of the A-10.
That works for me as long as you add “and tell the air force to pound sand.”
“The F-16 is NOT a tank killer and Russian has deployed TANKS along that line/”
The F-16 can kill tanks, it is just not near as well suited to the task as the A-10 is unmatched in that role.
“The F-15 and F-14 is much better that the F-16.”
Yes, they are and were respectively superior to the F-16 as air superiority fighters with one exception. The F-16 was built in the thousands while the F-15 was built in the hundreds. The hundreds of F-15A aircraft are now at the end of the service lives and have been retired along with many other models of the F-15 and F-16. The lower cost and greater numerical superiority of the F-16 has maintained a 4:1 availability advantage for the F-16. The F-14, as wonderful an aircraft as it was, was retired from the U.S. Navy long ago.
“The F-22 is much better than the F-16”
The F-22 is inferior to the F-16 with respect to cost, reliability, and a vastly greater numerical superiority for the F-16. We hardly have enough F-22 Raptors to maintain more than a few squadrons of them in combat operations at any one time.
“They don’t call the F-16 a LAWN DART for nothing!”
At least they have a fine combat record and are available in large numbers so there is something around in the first place capable of becoming a lawn dart. You cannot bore a hole in the ground, attack a ground target, or shootdown and enemy fighter-bomber with an aircraft sitting in tatters in the boneyard at Davis-Monthan or was never built in the first place.
“26+ years of Air Traffic Control in the USAF has taught me the A-10 Warthog is an outstanding aircraft!”
I was on the receiving end of the A-10 attacks in a bunker on the target range during my service in the USAF, so I can certainly testify to the fact the A-10 is the best ground attack aircraft ever built and deployed in combat.
My SIL works on that...he’s just a flunky engineer so not involved with the politics...but it’s a nice living for him, LOL.
One guesses their General and officer’s corps has been purged too.
“What do you work for General Dynamics or something.”
Evidently we have some numbskulls who refuse to read and understand what has been written before. So there can be no further argument about it, I’ll spell it out for you in no uncertain terms.
1. The A-10 is the best ground attack aircraft ever built and deployed in combat against CAS and interdiction ground targets.
2. The U.S. Air Force needs the A-10, and given the alternative much of the U.S. Air force would insist upon maintaining the A-10 and its missions.
3. The Congress has dictated to the U.S. Air Force that it must choose between funding the combat air support squadrons for the A-10 or the F-16, but not both at the same time.
“Give the troops what they want. Not what some politician says they want.”
In the United States the civilian authority is superior to the military authority of the U.S. Air Force, so the U.S. Air force must comply with the budget restrictions dictated by Congress. Anyone who does not like what Congress has dictated to the U.S. Air force, you know what you must do to change it and fund the combat air support squadrons for the F-16 and the A-10 at them same time.
The Army needs to reconsider and take it.
The Army can barely pay for it's reduced active force of 420K.
I agree with those observations completely. Unfortunately that is not a choice which is presently available to the U.S. Air force now or in the conceivable near future. Note how the F-22 Raptor programme aircraft numbers were cut down to the point where they are too few in numbers to maintain a credible force in two war theaters suffering no combat losses. After suffering any significant battle losses, their few remaining numbers will be nearly useless to many theater commands.
I do not want to see the A-10 retired at all. I also do not want to see the F-16 retired by the squadrons until such time as they are replaced with a far better aircraft than the hapless F-35. In the interim I want the A-10 and the F-16 to remain fully funded for combat operations. But, if Congress refuses to agree, I can understand why the U.S. Air Force considers the retirement of the A-10 to be the lesser of two great evils despite all of the obvious disadvantages in doing so. So, don’t blame the Air Force. blame the Congress for forcing the Air Force to make such an impossible choice.
“The Army needs to reconsider and take it.”
The U.S. Army is being forced to make its own draconian budget cuts to vital programmes as well. besides being operationally inappropriate for a long list of reasons, the Army simply could not fund such a programme without devastating the combat ground units the A-10 is supposed to support.
Congress, Democrats and some Republicans, were responsible for this destruction of the Air Force and other armed forces long before Obama came around to throw more fuel on the bonfire.
Yes, he is. I doubt the average American really cares or understands how woefully dismantled and socially engineered our military is now, nor understands the disasterous foreign and domestic implications of Obama's actions in doing so.
And based on an imposed homosexual General’s corps.
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