Boeing wins $2bn contract to rewing A-10s

Flight Global ^ | 7/5/2007 | Graham Warwick

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Boeing has won a $2 billion contract to build new wings for the US Air Force's Fairchild A-10 ground-attack aircraft, after beating rival bids from contractors including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

Announced on 29 June, the deal calls for the delivery of 242 replacement wing kits for installation by the USAF's Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB, Utah, with the work to extend the life of the A-10 fleet by at least 20 years.

More than 700 A-10s were introduced from 1976 and, despite regular threats of retirement, the type remains one of the air force's most effective close-air support platforms.

Lockheed is performing a wider precision engagement upgrade to the aircraft, and the resulting A-10C configuration will have new avionics equipment and an expanded range of air-to-surface weapons.

Boeing has yet to select its fabrication contractors for the rewinging project, which will begin with an 18-month engineering phase and is scheduled for completion by September 2018.

Boeing Macon will put the wing kits together for installation by the air force depot. The replacement design is based on the "thick" wing fitted to late production examples of the A-10.

Meanwhile, the USAF has awarded Korean Air a contract worth $16 million to continue service-life extension work on its A-10s until 2009. The company has previously modified 180 of the type at its Gimhae facility in South Korea.

[The Coopster]

All the info I am finding online for the A-10 shows an introduction year of 1972, and a first production year of 1975.

Sure you don’t have your years crossed? It HAS been a long time...

[MarineBrat]

Gotta love Warthogs! Here's a couple of pics I took back at the Edwards AFB show this year...

Maybe the coolest formation of the day, right over our heads.  Clockwise, from the top, the P-51 Mustang, F-15 Eagle, A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog), and the F-22 Raptor.

Notice something interesting about the Warthog.  It has a fake cockpit painted on its underbelly to help disguise its orientation.

The only two seater A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) ever made.

[null and void]

Sadly, no.

[null and void]

Notice something interesting about the Warthog. It has a fake cockpit painted on its underbelly to help disguise its orientation.

The Canadians do that on their fighters as well.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Yep, I've seen it on Canadian F-18s.

[Tallguy]

After 30 or so years in service it’s probably stress cracks & pitting. You either re-wing them or you G-limit them.

[Bender2]

Re: My grandfather got a ride in a B-17 a few months before he died. He was one of 4 WWII vets that took the place of men from the original crew who had already passed away.

Here's to your Grandfather...

[Tallguy]

If I’m not mistaken, air foil shapes were developed by the NACA, forerunner to NASA. That would make the crossectional shape kinda like ‘Public Domain’ stuff. As to the actual wing design — yeah that probably would be proprietary. Who purchased Fairchild Aircraft’s assets?

[snoringbear]

“-—I remember seeing A-10’s returning from runs in Laos when I was stationed in Thailand in ‘69.-—

The first production A-10A was delivered to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., in October 1975.

Date Deployed: March 1976”

Perhaps saw A1E Sky Raiders. They were used for close ground support in both Laos and Vietnam back in the early days of the war. As the A-10, it was slow, ugly, difficult to knock out of the sky, and a fying dump truck....

[Chode]

[Erasmus]

That pic in the midddle shows the A-10 deploying its reverse thruster.

[B4Ranch]

>>Boeing has yet to select its fabrication contractors for the rewinging project, which will begin with an 18-month engineering phase and is scheduled for completion by September 2018.<<

Probably, China will get the contract. They’ll need this technology for their military aircraft.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Good. We were going to lose the whole plane.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Some of their ground crews tend to get upset when A-10 pilots deploy their reverse thruster to slow down near the end of the runway.

[Erasmus]

LOL.

I was thinking the same thing.

If you’re driving your Hog onto the runway hot ‘n high, and going long, not to worry. You have your ace in the hole with your solid impulse reverse thruster.

[A.A. Cunningham]

I remember seeing A-10’s returning from runs in Laos when I was stationed in Thailand in ‘69.

BS. You must have been, or still are, high on Thai Stick if you remember seeing A-10s in '69.

[A.A. Cunningham]

I certainly hope Boeing does a much better job than they did rewinging the A-6.

[TalonDJ]

You can't just go out and copy someone else's design of a plane, boat, wing, whatever.

Many of these sort of things are done but the contractor reverse engineering the part. Copyrights work a little different with military contracts. The government does not quite 'own' the design but it is close. The government owns the functional requirements and if there is only really one way to satisfy those design requirements then it is not like the other company can cry foul. The new wing is sure to not be a carbon copy design anyway. So basically the function of the wing as far as the outside shape, the hard-points, landing gear provisions, attachment to the rest of the airframe, etc. are all fair game for anyone the military gives the contract to. Just like the way you can buy aftermarket parts for your Ford Mustang and Ford can't sue for copyright infringement. And even if they debatably could they would not because that would damage their relations with the rest of the industry.

[TalonDJ]

Wouldn't it be easier to tool up and build new entire planes?

No, because as long as you are building a new plane you would update things for the times. Which requires a lot of design effort. Even just copying takes a lot of time because Fairchild is not going to just hand you the blueprints. The task of designing a whole new airframe and testing it, even if it is suppose to be the same, is almost as hard as doing it from scratch. It does not seem like it should be, but it is.

[Paleo Conservative]

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