They should look at Burt Rutan’s vision of what to replace the A-10 with.
Scaled Composites ARES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG9LlHcX8lg
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.