“...the airframe itself can easily last another 30 years with updates to the electronic hardware, software, and engines.” [wildcard_redneck, post 33]
The airframe might last, but the avionics are already obsolescent. And they cannot be upgraded. Digital MIL STD bus systems are on all recent combat aircraft; the few subsystems on the A-10 were stand-alone. Remaking the entire aircraft would be needed, which would cost more than a new design.
Communications systems are incompatible with the new networked systems concept. It isn’t that new, but it’s been taking extra-long to implement because of resistance from people who don’t understand it. And it isn’t inexpensive either, which rubs Americans the wrong way: we want national defense but still believe it can be done on the cheap.
HORSE HOCKEY!
The avionics package and other electronics could EASILY be modernized in NEW airframes. The drawings should still be available, even if the dies were destroyed it's not that big a thing to make new ones.
Defeatists are just as bad as democrats.