Ladies and Gentlemen........The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. Also known with great affection as "The Warthog." The USAF has about 300 of them. They're cheap to maintain and operate. They're reliable. They're built like a cast iron crapper. Very survivable. They're effective as heck. They have long legs. Good loiter time. They will make an insurgent pee faster than any other airframe in operation. OH!..... AND they're more fuel efficient than other air to mud platforms. They're on the chopping block. General: Praising the A-10 to Lawmakers is 'Treason' | DoD Buzz 'Warthog' Jet Used Against ISIS May Get the Ax Legendary A-10 'Warthog' sends ISIS fleeing even as it faces Pentagon cuts | Fox News ...........Take it where you will.
love the warthog! save it, but no one listens to me. they'd rather scrap and claim they need a bigger budget for new ones.
The real solution is to transfer these aircraft to the Army. The stupid limitation of the army only having "helicopters" as ground attach air vehicles for the army close air support is the core problem. This results in the Air Force paying for army stuff and the Army using something much easier to shoot down than the Warthog for providing close air support under Army operational control. (Half a wing or one whole engine on the Warthog can be shot off and the Warthog still returns. Remove a sliver of either a helicopter main rotor or tail rotor and down it comes.)
The A-10 was a great plane but with the exception of the B-52, every weapon system reaches the end-of-life. If we could afford build more B-2s, the B-52 would become scrap. But the A-10 has probably reached the end of its design life. Personally, I like the direction of unmanned drones. Without humans, they can loiter a long, long time while the operators can swap-out, sip a cuppa coffee, and go to the bathroom. Improvements are needed: A weight-hog to replace the A-10 Inflight refueling and a drone tanker Additional optical, at least a pair Broad-spectrum imagery Stealth Drone air-to-air defense and offense (the bad guys read too!) The A-10 is a great, ground support aircraft but it is manned. Take out the human and a lot of weight becomes payload, fuel, and ordinance. Bob Wilson
Bob, I would point out that close air support right at the razor thin separation between the good guys and bad guys needs a human in the loop at the trigger. While drones may be perfect for many missions, most of the A-10 missions will not work via satellite drone control.
WW-I WW-II - Fritz X WW-II BQ-17 Current, short-range technology that only requires a laser designator. Aircraft performance already exceeds human abilities but are burdened by the weight of systems to support a 170 lbs of air-breathing, temperature limited, stress and optically limited human. Time to take the man out of the loop in tactical ground attack. Personally, I would like to see a camera and target seekers in these: I'm into accuracy and remote sensors and drones push us that way. Bob Wilson
Warthog....... ground pounders' best friend! Keep them, like the Buff: upgrades and rebuilds are the way to go. DBCassidy
They should totally keep them. But of course, armchair generals in the Pentagon apparently know what's best for our troops, and because the A-10 is a working system, it will likely get it axed. Just like when the Army said they didn't need more tanks, and Congress naturally gave them budgeting for more tanks. That said, this is definitely one of my favorite sounds when I was in the Army. While I didn't see combat (thankfully, though I did deploy to Kosovo and Korea), I did see these guys flying in for some training missions, and wow is it a morale booster for us, while simultaneously scaring the crap out of whoever's on the receiving end of this thing:
The real problem with the A-10? It's not pretty. That, and the USAF really doesn't like ground support because it means that they have to take orders from people with dirt on their uniforms.....and if they fumble the snap (it's easy to do in a fast mover!!!) you have to write letters and hold hearings after a blue-on-blue incident. Back in the 70's? The wing-wipers didn't like the A-10 and they came close to not building them at all. They almost deleted them after the Cold War wound down before Gulf-1....... (oops!) Bob is right in that UAVs will be the way to go in the future---which is something else that the USAF will only be dragged into kicking and screaming, but we're going to need the Hogs for a while longer.....and the FACs that make them so effective.
You know, I never really considered the warthog "ugly". Different, yes, especially compared to others such as the F-15 or F-18. And I'm sure the boots on the ground don't care what they look like, so long as the enemy is getting hammered by the A-10's. I'd say they should transfer them to the Army, since its primary role is to support the Army units anyway.
Then too, this might be an interesting experiment: Those big, slow turning props are hard to hear . . . I hear Bob Wilson
I'm old-school and sentimental about such things myself, but hanging on to the past only stifles innovation and development. Newer alternatives can better fulfill the role of a ground-attack aircraft. The British air forces were decimated at the beginning of WWII because they were still relying on WWI technology. The inventor of the jet engine , Frank Whittle was almost driven mad by the reluctance of the RAF to take his ideas seriously throughout the 1930s. It was only when Britain was facing almost certain defeat by the Luftwaffe, that they began to seriously commit to advanced aeronautical development.
I never said the Hog was ugly, I said "it's not pretty." If you have sand in your boots? The A-10 is BEAUTIFUL. I actually like the lines of the A-10, but I like the G3 Prius too.....so what do I know??? The Osprey is one great aircraft as well, but it's a little fragile for mud work. I think that the Navy should have bought some for their flight decks and used them for ASW duty, for times when a fling-wing can't get there and you don't have a P8 in your back pocket....but then the stupid anchor clankers threw away two of the three best ASW platforms in the world....
Actually? I thought that the RAF did rather well for themselves even in the opening stages of WW-twice. The Spitfires and Hurricanes were front line aircraft, and I'm sure that not having friendly skies overhead contributed to the German's decision to postpone Operation Sea Lion. The Lancaster was also a superb aircraft that was nearly peerless in theater until the Yanks showed up. The British also had some of the best twin engine attack aircraft in the war. I'm not advocating keeping the A-10s until 2050, but I think that we would do well not to try to use F-15's/F16's (which are as old as the A-10s) and F35's (which aren't suited for CAS) just because you're trying to get out of the close air biz. BUFFs aren't spring chickens either, and the Bone is a low level penetration bomber. It's not about technology.....it's about common sense. My commander made a famous gaff about bayonets being outmoded by the pace of technology. Last time I checked? They were still issuing them and teaching folks how to use them. YMMV.
In some ways, perhaps, but the Fairey Swordfish biplane was so obsolete at the time that the anti-aircraft guns on the German battleship Bismarck couldn't track such a slow aircraft, and some of them were able to get through and damage the rudder, which ultimately led to her sinking. A lucky accident, not superior technology. Yes, but by that time, Britain had learned a lot of humiliating lessons about being falsely prepared, and had already brought out their A-game.
