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 ...
The wings of the Warthog can take enormous stress.
In the tests they almost could not break them.
Aerobatic X100
A ground attack plane needs a LOW stall speed.
Stall is 120 knots for the A10.
That’s amazing for a plane that can fly at 380 knots and carry a huge load.
It just ain’t safe to be close to the ground if you have a high stall speed!
Re-wing Hell, restart the production like and get us a couple thousands of these cheap, sturdy warhorses....hogs.
Not sure they need to make more yet. There are what seems like miles of them mothballed at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson.
I think we already have those.
And drones that carry many tiny drones that deliver precision fuel-air weapons...can take out one guy in a crowd and leave everyone else intact.
Impressive AI in a small package.
The A10 was known to be a very tough aircraft. A relative who worked in aerospace told me that an A10 returned from a mission with one engine blown off. The pilot kind of sits in an IRON TUB to protect, according to the same source. By comparison, helicopters are much more fragile -- but they try to make helicopters survivable...
You cannot go wrong extending the life of an aircraft that can return from a mission safely, after losing an engine and portions of its tail. The Air Farce(yup) bureaucracy never liked the A 10. Pilots love em and so do the troops on the ground.
Now all can be assured it is the right decision!
My greatest comfort is knowing how well they bring home our pilots. Still pray for all!
That is the FIRST thing I thought when I saw that convoy. Still makes my blood boil.
sigh. My #3 DVD is toast. Keep forgetting to replace it.
I would agree if you mean pilotless aircraft.
Very good story. One of the reasons I love the Hog is bringing them home.
You know, they should have stored the tooling in the smithsonian basement.
So that’s why they’re headed to Oklahoma?
http://www.news9.com/story/28039187/a-10-warthog-to-take-on-oklahomas-thunderstorms
Ping!
They first must be adapted to angry sea bass.
I understand all the tooling to make the A-10 were destroyed.
Given the technology today how difficult would it be to reverse engineer the plane and build a new fleet?
Courtesy *PING* to you-know-who.
IIRC in Desert Storm an A-10 dropped an Iron Bomb on top of an Iraqi Helicopter for a kill.
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