Air Force Fails To Kill Off The A-10 Warthog But Boy Did They Try

[Alpo]

It will be the UAV force before long.

 

[whiteoak]

Is there a replacement in the wings ready to take the A-10's place? And if so who is profiting from its adoption?

 

[IndyDave1776]

Is there a replacement in the wings ready to take the A-10's place? And if so who is profiting from its adoption?

You just asked two questions for the price of one. Is there a replacement available to replace the functions of the A-10 in reality? No, there isn't. Is there a replacement waiting to replace the A-10 in theory while profiting select individuals and groups (like Lockheed Martin, for example)? Yes, there is a subvariant of the F-35 which is supposed to do the job although anyone with half a working brain can see that it isn't going to work. In truth, the A-10 is much like the way Tom Clancy described the oak blocks that Newport News Shipbuilding uses in the dry dock to build new aircraft carriers on top of--some things just work and cannot be improved. The same is true of the A-10. I am certain that you could refine the airframe, improve the electronics especially with a purpose-redesigned aircraft rather than add-ons, optimize it for improved rocket/missile/bomb ordinance, improve the pilot/control interface, but all these things are incremental improvements, not an attempt to make a Corvette do the job of a 3/4 ton truck, which is what constructing a ground attack variant of the F-35 amounts to.

 

[indykid]

Little update from the USAF on the continued use of the A10. This year's graduating class in "jet training" saw A10s handed out to new pilots.

Not going to train new pilots in the airframe if they are doing away with it.

GO A10!!!!

 

[Drail]

Nothing being made today can equal the A 10 for close support work. Nothing. Ask anyone who's ever flown one or called for an airstrike and got A 10s to respond..

 

[Thor]

Hear, hear.

I was on the ground in a tank for the first live fire exercise with the A-10. It made you want to stand up and salute that those things were on our side (except for that whole closing the hatch to keep out the flying shrapnel thing)...and they've only gotten better over the years.

Much like when NASA was asked why their new launch vehicle looked so much like the Saturn V...their answer was "physics hasn't changed" and the same is true with the A-10's design.

If you want to carry a big *** gun, lots of bombs, fly low enough to engage the ground troops and have a survivable cockpit, well that thing is going to look a lot like an A-10.

 

[Thor]

180 25mm rounds !!!!!! WTF ! Its hard to go to guns WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE ANY GUNS!

And that would be the gun they have test fired buy not installed on any variant yet...

 

[KellyinAvon]

It will be the UAV force before long.

Big Blue has flown fighters as drones ever since I can remember (82nd Aerial Targets Squadron at Tyndall AFB). They had F-100s and F-106s back in the day when I was a young troop and flew QF-4s, then QF-16s. That technology exists but the "eyes on target" part of A-10 can't be beat. O/A-10s manned as observers with unmanned A-10s getting in the weeds? TACPs call in JDAMs from BUFFs flying in the Bozosphere (heard that from an F-16 guy) so maybe an unmanned Hawg could be something.

 

[KellyinAvon]

Hear, hear.

I was on the ground in a tank for the first live fire exercise with the A-10. It made you want to stand up and salute that those things were on our side (except for that whole closing the hatch to keep out the flying shrapnel thing)...and they've only gotten better over the years.

Much like when NASA was asked why their new launch vehicle looked so much like the Saturn V...their answer was "physics hasn't changed" and the same is true with the A-10's design.

If you want to carry a big *** gun, lots of bombs, fly low enough to engage the ground troops and have a survivable cockpit, well that thing is going to look a lot like an A-10.

I heard the GAU-8 once at Eglin (A-10 was on a gun test range, you could see it as you drove by) when I was about 1/4 mile away. That is the most terrifying sound I have ever heard.

 

[Hookeye]

Don't need close air support if we don't put boots on the ground.

Current admin wasted a lot of blood and $.

Right or wrong, we can't win a ground war.

Next skyscraper falls...............turn a city or two of theirs into glass.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Don't need close air support if we don't put boots on the ground.

Current admin wasted a lot of blood and $.

Right or wrong, we can't win a ground war.

Next skyscraper falls...............turn a city or two of theirs into glass.

In the context of the situation, you are right, but those aren't our only enemies in the world.

I do agree about making some people glow in the dark if they get too far out of line.

 

[actaeon277]

http://www.jqpublicblog.com/congress-issues-air-force-sharp-rebuke-bars-a-10-retirement/


http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/09/30/congress-to-air-force-push-to-retire-a-10-misguided/

 

[Thor]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150904215114-f-22s-a-10s-3-large-169.jpg

Raptors and Thunderbolts flying together in Latvia.

 

[JollyMon]

Report: A-10 retirement indefinitely delayed

 

[AmmoManAaron]

Report: A-10 retirement indefinitely delayed

 

[Thor]

Slapped...dead in the face by reality. Sometimes the pencil pushers lose.

 

[CampingJosh]

I don't know if it was in celebration or what, but I had (what looked to me like) an A-10 fly directly overhead yesterday afternoon and then again this morning. I'm about 4 miles east of Rushville. That's not particularly common for me.

 

[Thor]

Probably Ft Wayne on their way to JPG. Because the War Hog flies low and slow they can use VFR to basically navigate everywhere without following specific routes. Just your lucky day!

 

[IndyDave1776]

Probably Ft Wayne on their way to JPG. Because the War Hog flies low and slow they can use VFR to basically navigate everywhere without following specific routes. Just your lucky day!

Yes, I know I am flying, but I will just take 65 from Louisville to Indianapolis, run 465 to 69, and then take it the rest of the way home to Ft. Wayne. Makes the navigation a lot easier!

 

[Thor]

IFR...I Follow Roads!