Keep counting!
Posted on 10/20/2019 10:52:08 AM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
CPI Aerostructures Inc.’s stock climbed Thursday after the company announced that it had won a contract worth as much as $48 million to re-wing Cold War-era A-10 “Warthog” jets, which the Pentagon previously had marked for retirement.
Vincent Palazzolo, chief financial officer of Edgewood-based CPI Aero, said in an email that the aerospace manufacturer has been seeking to add 10 to 15 employees to its workforce of 305 and that an additional 10 to 15 would be needed when A-10 work ramps up in 2020.
Shares of CPI Aero climbed 2.4 percent Thursday to close at $8.19. The stock was trading at $7.21 12 months ago.
In August 2014, CPI Aero took a $44.7 million noncash charge related to plans by the Pentagon to retire the A-10s, which were manufactured on Long Island.
“This award builds on our decadelong experience in manufacturing wing structures for the A-10 and cements our role as a key supply chain partner to Boeing on this aircraft to 2030 and beyond,” Douglas McCrosson, president and chief executive of CPI Aero said in a statement.
In its fiscal 2015 budget, the Air Force had estimated that retiring the A-10 would let it save $4.2 billion over five years.
Military campaigns in the Middle East, however, put the A-10 back to work. The ground-attack jet with a seven-barrel Gatling gun was designed to defeat Soviet tanks in Europe, but also proved adept at providing air support to ground troops seeking to defeat ISIS militants in the Middle East.
Under the new indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity agreement with prime contractor Boeing Co., CPI Aero will deliver structural assemblies and subassemblies for the wings of the A-10. The first delivery is expected in late 2020.
In August, Boeing announced it had won an Air Force contract with a maximum value of $999 million to re-wing up to 112 A-10s.
More than 700 A-10 Thunderbolts were made by Farmingdale-based Republic Aviation Co. (later to become Fairchild-Republic Co.).
The A-10s nickname sprang from an Air Force major who said the jet was “ugly as a warthog,” according to an account by Elliot Kazan, who died in August 2018. The Dix Hills aeronautical engineer was the project manager overseeing the jet’s production.
Good news!
Probably the most badass airplane in our inventory!
Loved by everyone with boots on the ground!
Hated by fast-mover advocates!
We didn’t build enough F-22s, they are often down for maintenance and parts supplies are not great. They have also lost in exercises against the Luftwaffe and Indian Air Force.
The F-15 has also never gone up against a non-export first line contemporary in real combat. It has two gigantic IR sources for modern IR homing missiles to guide on in the back. Also, all the F-15Cs that are in inventory are getting old as the newest one is now something like 25-30 years old.
A lot of US air superiority in the last 30 years has had less to do with the combat airframes and more to do with the AWACS sitting way back and watching everything with long range radar, allowing the combat airframes to approach and fire without betraying themselves with their own radar. Thing is, our peer or near peer enemies have had 40 years to watch this; both Russia and China now have AWACS-killer missiles. Once you kill or mission kill the AWACS, our fighters then have to radiate themselves. In exercises where our planes are deprived of AWACS support, our success rate has gone from overwhelming to just slightly better than a coin toss - and the F-22 especially has had some pretty bad exercise days as a result.
Um, no, the bathtub isn’t a problem to replace or replicate. Titanium isn’t that hard to obtain.
Link to story? Not familiar with it.
No i wonder, , , , , just how many time3, lives would have been saved and how many fights would have been cut short.
You mean like an A-11?
We actually already assigned numbers to at least A-12.
Keep counting!
The A-26 was a nice-looking aircraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_A-12_Avenger_II
There’s never been a better close support aircraft.
Did you know Chad Hennings?
He played football at the AF Academy where he won the Outland Trophy as best college defensive lineman. Later flew the A-10 in Iraq. Drafted by the Cowboys, he won three Super Bowl rings playing defensive tackle.
When I was 18 in the Navy, I served in catapults. I was 6’1” and all of the jet pilots were a few inches shorter and about 170#.
Chad was at least 6’4” and about 240# or more.
I’ve always wondered how he fit into the cockpit...
Strange.
I worked for Fairchild in the 1970’s when we thought there was going to be an order from the West Germans (cancelled by that Peanut Farmer idiot we elected President). Before that happened, the major concern WAS the bathtub. In fact they were even offering a discount to the Germans to leave it out.
A-14, then.
Yep, you’re correct about the reset but I couldn’t resist deviating the spotlight onto my favorite Warbird
My old man is a television repairman, hes got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.
Oh, no, in the 60s and 70s you would be correct. Titanium was hard to get in the west, to the point where early SR-71s were made from titanium scrounged in the world market under false pretenses and identities from the Soviets. It was very rare in the West.
Today is a different matter. Titanium is now found in many cheap consumer products like drill bits, car key heads, platings for knives and scissors, key fobs, etc. In the 2000s, you could get entire laptop bodies made of titanium alloys. It’s still more expensive than steel or aluminum by a significant amount, but it’s no longer the rare exotic material that it was 40 years ago.
Big Guy needs a big cockpit, and the A10 fit perfectly.
Lucky he had skills, fighter pilot skills, that pointed him to the Hog.
Didn’t know him personally but did know pilots that knew him. All said he was a stand up guy. He was offered by the Air Force to go to Cowboys once graduated, but he said “I have an obligation to pay back, first.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.