Posted on 03/15/2015 5:15:56 PM PDT by EveningStar
After more than four decades in service, the A-10 Warthog is due for a replacement. So says the U.S. Air Combat Command.
What's more, ACC says it's already "thinking about" fielding such a replacement. But what might that replacement be?
Last week, we got a clue. As reported by Reuters, the Air Force has recently begun evaluating Textron's Scorpion fighter jet as a potential 21st-century replacement for the 20th-century Warthog.
(Excerpt) Read more at fool.com ...
Looks like a Canadian Snowbird (CT-114 Tutor) with a V-Tail. Another ballerina aircraft for airshows. Nothing whatsoever like a Hog.
The advantage of the A10 is its close in support, loitering capability and survivability.
The F-5 still looks sexy compare to this pudgy thing. A hell of a lot faster, too.
I get a couple Air Force magazines and they say they’ve run the numbers and the A10 isn’t survivable. But for the foreseeable future the A10 would be employed mostly to kill Jihadi armies and I don’t believe we’ve lost a single one.
There is just something weird about the Air Force fetish for replacing the A10 with the F35.
That’s right but your range will be diminished to a great degree.I don’t know what the range is clean.
It may be a good jet for some missions.
It can’t replace the A-10.
They don’t call it motley FOOL for nothing. Just a promo of a piss poor plane. That thing couldn’t get out of its own way. Tell the sob’s who are promoting it to go down in the mud with a bunch of rag heads with golden bb’s and see how long they last... You go first meat heads.
The flying A-10 fleet is essentially new having been rebuilt in just the last few years. Considering to retire it is just stupid... there is a payoff going on some where to get someone to require a replacement. Bank on it.
This is the most corrupt country on the planet. US politicians and bureaucrats are not even up front about being dishonest. The nigerians at least admit it.
The Scorpion looks like a F/A-18 and F-111 hybrid. Why not just keep the A-10 and build a couple hundred more of them?
I have the “Shoot to Thrill” video.
I have no download account. If somebody wants it I will send it to your mail.
It's not designed to be as powerful or survivable as the A-10, apparently, just cheaper to operate and replace.
Old Student
WRM, MSgt, USAF(ret.)
“There is just something weird about the Air Force fetish for replacing the A10 with the F35.”
No, it’s perfectly understandable if you know that the generals commanding the USAF are mostly fighter pilots, and they look down on “trash-haulers” and other non-figher pilots. “There are two kinds of aircraft: fighters and targets.”
Honestly, what would probably make the most sense would be to cross-deck the A-10’s to the Army and Marine Corps, and let the USAF have their toys. At least that way ground pounders would know they had the support they needed.
My personal favorite of the Vietnam era, which I enlisted during, was the F-4. “World’s Largest Distributor of MIG Parts.” It was sexy. ;) Unfortunately, I wound up working on Arvaarks. Waddles like a duck. A group of them taxiing was called a baby elephant walk.
But I’m not a fighter pilot, just a crew chief, photographer, and SATCOM, and I know it take ALL kinds folks to make a war work out the way we want it to.
Old Student
WRM, MSgt, USAF(Ret.)
Big fan of Burt Rutan. He, John Madden, Ozzie Smith,
Weird Al Yankovic, Chuck Liddell, Mike Krukow, and
I all have this in common. ....our batchelor degrees
all came from the same nationally unknown college.
Of the group I am the one NOT found at Wikipedia.
I am found only at FR.
Or, hasn't anyone been paying attention to this?
Textron paper airplane POS
KEEP THE BEAST ! It terrifies our enemies
If no. 1 is true then what does that say about the “War on Women”?
How old are most B52’s?
But they have been retrofitted and can continue to fly forever
Warthogs are great at doing away with tanks and ground troop protection or decimation.
The new Tigershark
“There is just something weird about the Air Force fetish for replacing the A10 with the F35.”
That’s the same red flag that went up for me. I imagine that those who are hot for the F-35 and want it “by any means necessary” can’t live without having to purchase the latest versions of every appliance, electronic instrument and component for their own homes and offices.
This jet is a pretty aircraft but its payload is half of the A-10 and it doesn't have the 30MM like the A-10, and let's not forget the A-10 gun gives the Hog the capability for multiple and multiple passes, thereby affecting the battlefield and it also gives the aircraft versatility (can kill anything).
No mention of redundant flight control systems nor any mention of cockpit protection (titanium “bathtub”).
Said it can fly faster. “Speed is life” is important in the A/A arena, but for CAS this is not necessarily a good thing.
One must be able to fly in, see the tgt, aim accurately, pickle/pull the trigger and turn away from the frag pattern (or avoid over-flying the tgt/bad guys). Faster speeds mean you travel more distance once you see the tgt anmd this brings you closer to the threat. Of course, from medium to high altitude, speed doesn't affect this capability as much but it still requires the pilot to fly wider turns to keep eyes on tgt or to fly at a sustained (tiring) higher-G to stay close to the tgt to keep eyes on tgt.
Has a slower stall speed, great, but that is the wrong measure. Basically, stall speed is the slowest speed you can fly before falling out of the sky. Who the heck flies into combat at stall speed? It is maneuvering speed, “corner velocity,” who has the quickest, tightest turn and the ability to maintain that energy state. This “replacement” may be slower but at near stall speed your turn is slower and your radius is large.
Pretty tinker-toy jet. . .not an A-10 replacement.
Just IMHO. . .
Accountants are driving the decision-makers, not fighter pilots or warriors.
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