The A-10 Thunderbolt AKA “Warthog” is a flying farm tractor. Slow, brutish, but reliable as the tide and endearingly indestructible and incredibly effective. Strategists have feared that the jet will be axed in favor of funding the F-35, but the U.S. Air Force recently confirmed that it plans to keep the A-10 flying “indefinitely.”
While the Air Force is theoretically supposed to be diverting the A-10’s operating expenses to feed the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the people in charge are now planning to keep the plane running.
“They have re-geared up, we’ve turned on the depot line, we’re building it back up in capacity and supply chain,” Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski told AviationWeek in a interview. “Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely.”
While the beancounters and product planners are trying to push the A-10 off the board, Materiel Command is going to keep on keeping the planes in peak condition, which will give the A-10 it’s best chance of proving its worth over and over again.
And it seems to be working– the A-10 posted a five percent increase in its availability rate from 2014 to 2015, and the Air Force seems to keep postponing its demise.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is supposed to be a do-it-all combat aircraft that can engage other planes in the sky, make long-range bombing runs and come in low and slow to support ground troops. It hasn’t gotten off to a great start, to put it lightly, and so far its effectiveness in any of those roles has yet to be truly tested in combat. That last move especially is the A-10’s specialty, and a big part of the reason the plane is so beloved by servicemen and women.
To embattled soldiers on the ground, the only sound more reassuring than an A-10’s engine is the BRRRT of its massive front cannon providing you with cover fire. At least that’s the prevailing lore you’ve probably already heard about this plane already.
The F-35 on the other hand, has established a reputation of being over budget and underperforming.
Great plane the A-10.
On a raining day up at the lake house in Pa. we (my son and I) bought some A-10 models and built them. They are hanging in my basement.
i have often thought about building an A-10 RC plane but the dual engines have kept me away from doing it.
I like the building part more than the done/flying part so I may build it anyway.
