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.
Carrier capability adds cost and complexity to any aircraft, as it has to be reinforced, all the materials need to be made salt-water corrosion proof or at least salt-water corrosion resistant, and on and on. Maybe not a good idea.
Yeah, but you can’t tell the A-10 fans out there that their favorite plane is meat on the table for even a 30 year old MiG. That was always the case, BTW. Even when the A-10 was first fielded in Europe against the Warsaw Pact forces, they figured that the entire A-10 force would be operationally ineffective in a matter of 3 or 4 days.
Well, so far we haven’t found multirole aircraft to be able to sufficiently do the A-10’s job, so it kind of falls apart there.
On the other hand, the big supersonic fighters are going to be losing stealth over time as technology is advancing. Already you can tell if a stealth craft is operating in an area, even if not quite good enough for a missile lock just yet, to give one example.
This is true, but that estimate was greatly revised after better NATO fighters came about. If you can get air supremacy or even a high level of air superiority, the A-10 would make out alright.
The same thing applied to US helicopters, too.
Love watching the A-10’s. Damn fine close support platform; well armed, and well armored.
Warthogs are basically flying tanks. They rock. If you are boots on the ground for the US, this is a sound you want to hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHum4v-0res
Warthogs are basically flying tanks. They rock. If you are boots on the ground for the US, this is a sound you want to hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHum4v-0res
Warthogs are basically flying tanks. They rock. If you are boots on the ground for the US, this is a sound you want to hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHum4v-0res
The grunts used to laugh at the AF attempts at CAS in RVN. They, for whatever reason, released so high the joke was they were all frustrated B-52 pilots. Marine CAS could be scary to watch, they got so low before pulling out.
Did you see that demonstration that the Navy put on using swarming drones that were dropped like chaffe from a pair of F/A-18F’s? That is the future. The rear seaters were simply cue-ing them via mouse-clicks to swarm a particular GPS coordinate. If you imagine each drown being effictively a cluster bomblet, then the enemy tank formation or SAM battery is in for a very bad day.
I’m headed to
Greenland,
Trump should have
That Deal wrapped up
By Then!
“Already you can tell if a stealth craft is operating in an area, even if not quite good enough for a missile lock just yet, to give one example.”
You put you finger on (perhaps) the last redeeming advantage of stealth aircraft - the ability to prevent, or easily break, a missile lock. You don’t hear a lot of talk about it. But just look at the huge radars used in the Russian S-400 system. There are dozens of them. Some for long-range detection, some for tracking and some for targeting. Take away 1 or 2 critical radars and the entire network is severely degraded. And if you manage to vector fighters out to the stealth intruders they may as well be throwing rocks. As soon as they ‘lock-up’ a stealth target and fire, they won’t be able to move to the next target because the tiny radar dish inside the AAM is too small to get & maintain it’s own lock.
I don’t disagree that it’s the future - but as an IT consultant, I know that there’s going to be all sorts of reliability issues with that for the forseeable future. There’s also the fact that a swarm system as currently implemented runs smack into the “you radiate, you *die*” realities of near peer combat. China and Russia haven’t been idle while we’ve been working on swarms.
You can say that again!
Less than you might think - the S300 and S400 can be datalinked in a virtual Very Large Array. This massively helps them detect stealth craft and the loss of one or two radars doesn’t degrade such a VVLA much.
The other reality is that there is no “ultimate weapon”. But if the Russians or Chinese were to send a bunched-up tank battalion to attack a Marine beachhead or a Ranger battalion guarding an airhead, then the USAF, Navy or Marines are definitely willing to trade a pair of F-18’s to stop those 50 tanks.
Now if the near-peer opponent sees that US capability they aren’t likely to use mass armored attacks against US troops and then those Marines & Rangers can defend themselves pretty well with Javelins and TOW’s against dispersed enemy armor.
Just our reduced (thanks, traitor Obama) F-22 fleet gives us air superiority wherever we need it. Not sure if the F-35’s add much. But also add our F-18 Super Hornets, F-15 Eagles, and F-16 Falcons.
Heck, F-15 Eagles which first flew in 1972 have NEVER suffered a combat loss. NEVER. Just those will shred most “fourth generation fighters.” Then again add the F-22s and Super Hornets.
We ALWAYS have air superiority when we need it. To be blunt, no other Air Force or Naval Aviation Force comes close. It’s frankly laughable.
Awesome
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.