Tutti
← Back to Squawk list
Air Force to keep A-10 flying
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter this week confirmed what had been rumored for months: The Air Force's ground attack jet, the inelegant but well-armed and well-armored A-10 Thunderbolt, nicknamed the "Warthog," will not face retirement until at least at least six years. "The budget defers the A-10's final retirement until 2022, replacing it with F-35 Joint Strike Fighters on a squadron-by-squadron basis, so we'll always have enough aircraft for today's… (www.cnn.com) Altro...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
As Patrick stated, there are dozens of A-10s sitting in storage at Davis-Monthan in Tucson, the majority of which can be made operational again using sacrificed parts from their sister ships sitting next to them. And he is also correct that the jihadi-thing will not be going away soon either, making the need for the A-10 all that much more important into the foreseeable future. Here's an idea, restart the A-10 production line with some design improvements for the avionics and weapons compatibilities in place of building a portion of the 1200 or so F-35s the Pentagon wants to procure. These A-10s would replace the Lightning 2s that will not be as capable of fulfilling the CAS role, since a couple of BBs will take it out of action, not like the Warthog which can be full of holes and still keep flying.
To bad the Marines don't have something like this to back them up. So far the F35 is a bust. Biggest waste of money, besides congress, that we have.
Is or has the A10 ever been Carrier launched??
Certainly if there was something like it, Iranian speedboats would be trying to outrun Uranium enriched 30 mm cannon shells. However as a CAS weapon its relatively slow speed and combat radius of around 250 miles would mean a carrier would have to be close to the enemy to make it effective. Besides we now have the F35 which can scare them with their price tags.
The software to launch the price tags isn't working yet.
Damn. Must be hard to make tags with numbers that big.
Their on computer chips!