Posted on 09/01/2018 4:08:30 PM PDT by huldah1776
More than a third of the service’s Warthogs risked retirement without new wings.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
And what you are describing hasn’t got squat to do with the kind of wars the Army has been fighting since Korea, the kind that require CAS.
CAS prevents infantry from being overrun and decimated by opposing ground forces. That’s every war we have been fighting for decades. Infantry types tend to consider anyone who can destroy them as “a REAL adversary” worthy of taking seriously.
I don’t know why you think giving CAS aircraft to the Army would harm the Air Force in any fashion. The enemy can already “vector into” the Army’s CAS helicopters if they feel like it. Warthogs are just a whole better than helicopters in a lot of situations, and the Army should be in control of them.
I liked reading that the 30mm gunpod for the A-16 / F/A-16 torqued sideways upon firing and limited accuracy.
Didn’t they learned that with the 20mm gunpod on the F-4 phantom back during Vietnam?
found a request from Gov in 2011 for creation of new tooling from blueprints. Interesting site.
AF
A-10 CAD/CAM Model
Solicitation Number: FA8202-11-R-1008
Agency: Department of the Air Force
Office: Air Force Materiel Command
Location: AFLCMC / AFSC / AFNWC - HILL AFB
Amen to that!
Love me some Warthogs.
Not really. Here’s one time McCain had it right;
https://youtu.be/N1vWRX1fx04
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