Air Force Fires Up the A-10 Depot Line to Keep Warthogs Flying 'Indefinitely'
"Well, we're still kinda working on replacing it with two separate aircraft as a stopgap measure until we can design something else entirely to fill that role, because even we don't believe the BS that the F-35 is good for CAS like any foreseen future conflicts require"
Conspiracy theory noted elsewhere: Russia is tank-heavy. The A10 was designed specifically to kill Russian tanks en masse.
One of the coolest planes ever. I routinely see F22s hauling around JBER but seeing these in person is a whole other kind of awesome.
Woo hoo! If I wasn't on my phone I would hotlink both some futurama "Good new everybody!"
In reply to Brian:
In reply to Knurled:
It's more like "Congress listened to a bunch of Internet fanboys and tried to withhold funding for replacement of the A-10 so that jobs remain in their districts, so now we have to spend a crap ton of money refurbishing an old aircraft that does the same job as every other aircraft in the inventory. But it has a big penile compensating gun, so you know... "
In reply to ThunderCougarFalconGoat:
The way I understand it, the problem is interdepartment rivalry. The USAF doesn't like having to do CAS to assist the Army. The A10's whole mission is CAS.
More and more people are talking about dissolving the USAF and making it a division of the Army again. Mind you, nobody in actual power to do anything about it, as far as I'm aware, but there's a strong sentiment that having a separate air force, when the Navy and Marines have their own aircraft too, makes little sense...
Good. One of the best planes ever made, it will suck once it does get put out of commission.
That being said, strange things are afoot at the Circle K, so they probably are keeping them in the roster.
Can other aircraft do the same job as the A-10? Yes. Can they do it better. No.
Did you know that the other aircraft that can are just as old, if not older than the A-10. You sound like an F-35 fanboi.
ThunderCougarFalconGoat wrote: In reply to Knurled: It's more like "Congress listened to a bunch of Internet fanboys and tried to withhold funding for replacement of the A-10 so that jobs remain in their districts, so now we have to spend a crap ton of money refurbishing an old aircraft that does the same job as every other aircraft in the inventory. But it has a big penile compensating gun, so you know... "
No, they listened to soldiers and Marines.
The Air Force never wanted the thing but they also don't want the Army to have it. As idiotic as that seems that's what it boils down to.
Congress keeps handing out money to keep the A-10 flying because it keeps jobs in multiple districts while the Air Force keeps funneling money into attempting to make one of three variants of the F-35 work as a multirole platform (hah). The A-10 is also an orphan airplane as Fairchild was bought up by M7 then bought by Elbit so its not like spare parts and engineering teams from Northrop, Lockheed, or Boeing are able to be leveraged. As much as I love the A-10 its rapidly turning into a debacle.
So we're rapidly approaching the point now where the military is finally going to build a multirole fighter/bomber/CAS aircraft but they'll only be able to afford one and the Army, Navy, and Air Force will split it 2 days a week a piece with the Marines still doing all the work anyway on Sundays.
Knurled wrote: Conspiracy theory noted elsewhere: Russia is tank-heavy. The A10 was designed specifically to kill Russian tanks en masse.
There's even a coloring book about it.
They never learned from the F-111 debacle.
The infastructure that built the KC-135 and the B-52 are gone. The engineers that designed it all, are gone. The engineering drawings remain. Those systems are still servicable. So is the A-10 systems and structures. The A-10 is a simple machine.
How great of a risk for a potential armed conflict with Russia, or Russian armed pawns is there currently?
I don't really keep up with world news so some of the language in previous posts piqued my curiosity.
Knurled wrote: In reply to ThunderCougarFalconGoat: The way I understand it, the problem is interdepartment rivalry. The USAF doesn't like having to do CAS to assist the Army. The A10's whole mission is CAS. More and more people are talking about dissolving the USAF and making it a division of the Army again. Mind you, nobody in actual power to do anything about it, as far as I'm aware, but there's a strong sentiment that having a separate air force, when the Navy and Marines have their own aircraft too, makes little sense...
That's precisely why the Air Force is separate. The Army cares about CAS and..... Spending on space systems, strategic bombers, silo based nukes, stealth technology, etc. have always been dismissed by the Army.
In reply to Knurled:
If Air Force doesn't like doing close air support, then why does every combat air craft in the Air Force do it? Seems like a lot of money being spent on stuff they don't like to do... By the way, did you know that up until July of this year, the Air Force Chief of Staff was an A-10 driver? Even he wanted to retire it.
In fact, the Air Force has fought and died along with soldiers, sailors, and marines. They know the score, and know they could just as well be protecting their own out there as much as they are protecting people in other services. And that kind of 80s era interservice rivalry is for the most part dead and buried. The services are far more unified and interconnected, with new Joint commands being set up anytime there is the barest hint of a reason to. 15 years of grueling war has changed the way the military operates, not to mention decades of fighting for funds from Congress.
Just remember, the Air Force doesn't hate anything as much as it loves pilots. If they want to let an aircraft go, its because that aircraft isn't good at its job anymore. You could take a Cessna full of GPS guided grenades and pull CAS on ISIS positions. But in a real war, the low, slow A-10 is just a suicide ride for its pilot. Seriously, look up the expected loss rate of A-10s in a European invasion by the USSR during the 80s. Greater than 50% of the deployed aircraft in the first week. And more than 85% of the entire fleet by the earliest expected slow down of the Soviet advance. And China has even better capability than Russia had back then.
Actually, the A-10's real mission is anti-tank strikes. CAS is an extension of that, but its not the same thing. F-15s, F-16s, and AC-130s, ect, also perform CAS. Even the F-35 will be able to perform CAS.
In fact, when it comes to loitering time and payload capacity which are the only thing the A-10 has over other 'fighters', the B-1B can carry way more than any A-10 and hang out over a battlefield for 16 hours with fresh pilots. Seems like we should buy more B-1s instead of rewinging A-10s. I bet we could get a whole lot of them for 2 Billion dollars.
I'd love to meet the idiots who think dissolving the Air Force is a good idea.
Appleseed wrote: Can other aircraft do the same job as the A-10? Yes. Can they do it better. No.
Well, the right question to ask is not "can they do it better", it's "can they do it adequately while costing less than keeping the A-10 running". It sounds like the answer is no. :)
ThunderCougarFalconGoat wrote: I bet we could get a whole lot of them for 2 Billion dollars.
Unit cost was $281M in 1998, or $416M today. So 2 billion gets you about four a half bombers...
In reply to Appleseed:
The initial designs, yes. But unlike the A-10, they were kept in production for decades. The latest F-15, the E model Strike Eagle, entered service in the late 80s all through the 90s (10-15 years after the A-10). The F-16 is STILL IN PRODUCTION. The F-22 didn't enter service until the 2000s. The B-1B was around the same time frame as the Eagle. The F-35 is only a few years old.
All of these platforms are just as capable of dropping laser guided or GPS bombs as the A-10 is. Regardless of what Michael Bay portrays, A-10s very very very rarely engage ground troops with their gun, especially after multiple friendly fire events. The risk of taking damage is too great for the little if any advantage being low down on the deck gives them. Having altitude gives you a better view of the overall situation and a bit of protection against SAMs and AAA.
A-10s also lack radar, so I hope your bad guys only show up when the sun is shining and there aren't any clouds out. Otherwise, one of those 'inferior' planes might have to show up and do the job.
I happen to think the F-35 is a marvelous aircraft. The program wasn't really run that great, but that isn't the F-35's fault. It continues to pass test milestones left and right, and Lockheed Martin and friends are genuinely behind efforts to correct faults as they are identified. The Marines should be deploying their first operational squadron soon, if they haven't already left. If the Marines like it, it can't be that bad right?
In reply to codrus:
Still, not really a bad deal...
Look, I'm all for finding a replacement for the A-10. E36 M3 wears out, and the A-10 might not be the best plane to fight the next war. But it's doing a pretty good job fighting the one we're in now, so until the replacement is actually online, let's...
“‘Fast moving aircraft are not designed to support ground troops,’ said Army Sgt. First Class Frank Antenori. ‘As much as the Air Force and Navy would like to think that, fighter aircraft that travel at speeds can’t slow down to identify the targets.’ Antenori made this statement after witnessing a friendly fire incident, in which bombs dropped from one of USAFs fast movers killed 16 Kurds and injured 45. He also said that “With fast movers, I never had any success,”, and that senior decision makers often become so enamored with technology that they fail to see what troops on the ground really require. While A-10s never missed, F-18s needed two or three bombing runs to get them on target, he said.
I'm trying not to fanboi here. What I'd like to see for CAS is armed T-6s. Cheap, easy to fix, easy to deploy. How many could be bought and armed for one squadron of F-35s
I guess Sgt Antenori should read this article, or the many like it, that detail how the A-10 has the HIGHEST friendly fire kills out of any other aircraft in the war.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/05/a-10-john-mccain-iraq-afghanistan/22931683/
Particularly telling is this statement
"First, you better do no harm," a senior Army officer told USA TODAY. The officer commanded at high levels in Iraq and Afghanistan and, like other senior officers, has seen the A-10s work up close. "I didn't want any stinkin' A-10s flying unless they were going to drop a (satellite-guided bomb) or other precision-guided munition."
So, I'm a fanboi for the F-35, but you aren't one for the A-10? Sounds like internet logic to me.
T-6s are only going to work in low intensity conflicts. Yes, that's what we are dealing with NOW, but that may not be what we will face tomorrow. Just like the anti-vehicle missile thread, you can't take a low intensity conflict weapon and employ it in a high intensity environment, but you CAN take a high intensity weapon and use it anywhere.
What I mean by that is, yes, T-6s will work fine going against ISIS now. But if Putin ships them a couple SAMs or China decides to flex some muscles in the pacific, then the T-6 is a waste of money. Same with the A-10.
No, the F-35 is not the BEST close air support aircraft out there, but it can be nearly as good as the A-10 or F-16 in low intensity conflicts by carrying stores of guided munitions, and much much better than either of those aircraft when faced with an enemy that can shoot back by virtue of its sensor infusion and low observable construction. When you are the Air Force and congress continues to cut your funding for aircraft, why would you choose the single purpose relic that can't survive in a modern battlefield over a true multi-purpose airframe that is able to get to a target anywhere in the world and attack it? Even if that target is a couple of guys on a hill in Afghanistan shooting at fellow service members.
I'm not a plane guy, and have no dog in this fight, but I do have questions. How close are we to having drones do all of the airborne tasks anyway? If we're going to invest in new plane tech, geared toward potential conflicts in the future, why even put a pilot in harm's way? Seems like planes would be much more capable of varying speeds, high g-force maneuvers and have increased payloads if the pilot wasn't taking up space in the cockpit.
The A-10 has been around for something like 30 years. That seems like a long time for an airframe design to an outsider. It also seems like a great ROI on the money spent developing it. If drones will be doing most of these jobs in 10 years, does it make sense to continue to invest billions into aircraft that will be an intermediate step, but have a much shorter useful life? If that timeline is close, then I'd say use the crap out of what we currently have, quit building/spending on new planes, and dump that development cash into the future. If that timeline is wrong, then I could be talked into continuing to produce and develop the intermediate aircraft.
The0retical wrote: The Air Force never wanted the thing but they also don't want the Army to have it. As idiotic as that seems that's what it boils down to.
Yep. And only when Congress forces them does the Air Farce support the A-10, and only for as long as Congress is looking. Otherwise, the parts pipeline is dry, and they are desperately trying to replace it with something, anything, and get away from helping the Army. Been down that road before with them (ex Air Force A-10 mechanic).
I see the A-10 basher is hard at work. No, you are a Fanboi of the F-35 because you stated it, in this and other threads, multiple times.
Now for anyone that knows that isn't into A-10 hating, is it going to get the updated avionics package that has been waiting for it?
As far as costs, well the A-10 is cheap to operate comparatively.
As far as the highest friendly fire incidents...It's four.
And from the article posted above. "The data do not prove the A-10 is poorly suited to its mission, according to Dustin Walker, a spokesman for the Senate Armed Services Committee. "While any loss of life is a great tragedy, in the context of tens of thousands of Air Force combat missions, this data is inconclusive and statistically insignificant to determining which weapon system is most effective in its primary mission, or at avoiding civilian casualties or friendly-fire incidents," Walker said.
The Air Force wants to retire the A-10 and use some of the $4.2 billion savings over five years to pay for crews to maintain the F-35, a costly new warplane that can perform multiple missions, from close-air support to attacking enemy fighters"
So no, it isn't costly to maintain, it isn't a friendly fire menace, and it is still very effective in its role. The ONLY legitimate complaints on the A-10 are it's too slow to do longer range strikes effectively and it's developed which doesn't make any money for Corporate Sponsors of Congress and the Purchasing department at the DoD.
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