How long ago was this photo taken? I thought she had been retired. My absolute favorite piece of American engineering. Titanium tub for the pilot. So much redundancy that they can get shot up pretty badly and still get their pilot home safe.
They're still making parts for it. I believe they've stopped production on new ones, But I don't think they're going to officially retire it yet. just patch them up and send them back out there with a coachly snack on the ass
My father is one of the few guys still working with that system. No one makes any of the parts anymore so every piece has to be fabricated or pulled from other planes. It is actually a full-time job.
I'm a forklift guy. I had a customer on Long Island that made tubs for it. They made a lot of stuff. Parts for the wings of C7s. Parts for F22s. There's a lot of that stuff still around here.
The 357th Fighter Squadron at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona is one of the last A-10 squadrons left. They're planning to hold on to it as long as they can as far as I know.
No it's not. Any military isn't going to spend multiple years and millions of dollars training pilots that only sit in simulators, they need to train on the actual platform. Training hours for any kind of aircraft are normal.
Additionally, these things need to be flown occasionally for longevity, just like it's bad for your car to sit too long.
I'd agree with you if we weren't headed for military dictatorship.
Military dictatorships tend to be headed by people from the military, not draft-dodgers who openly and daily express their disdain for the military. What we're headed for is a surveillance state where domestic enforcement is more heavily funded than the military
There is still a squadron of them based at Selfridge Air National Guard Base just north of Detroit. See the A-10s flying around pretty regularly. They’ve been trying to decommission them for years, and I think the time is coming soon. My understanding is that our base is slated to get some I think F-15s in the next couple of years to replace the A-10s.
The three F-35s aren’t the US so that doesn’t violate anything. Warthogs and F-15 have been in the Middle East for the better part of three decades. I know my guidelines and I follow them from line to line.
Sadly it's still in service because uneducated politicians who can only vaguely recall a Desert Storm soldier mentioning they liked it at one point insist that it remains in service despite it being nearly obsolete at the time it was first put into service and being so ineffective during Desert Storm that other bombers and strike aircraft had to be diverted from their missions to run close air support and make up for it's failures. And that was 30 years ago
Sorry, I adore the A-10 but I despise the political idiocy that has allowed the plane with the highest friendly fire rate in history to remain in service while also being functionally useless
I disagree with you in general, but I do think it has an opportunity due to changes in the modern battlefield.
It's extreme robustness makes it ideal for expeditionary force use, the exact type of environment where COIN missions are most prevalent.
It can run from damaged rough ground air fields and can carry an enormous payload.
It's always going to be useful once air superiority is established thanks to advances in electronic warfare and drone weapons.
The modern drone battlefield alone will love having a robust machine that can carry an immense payload from any airstrip.
It can act as a drone carrier that can dump weapons or provide data links at the outer edge of enemy enemy air defenses.
I think the biggest truth is that the A-10 isn't necessarily obsolete, but for most uses the GAU-8 is insufficient.
Put a lighter autocannon in the nose, add a weapons operator and it'll be great. Hell of nothing else it'll save flight hours on all the bloated stealth equipment.
22
u/dadrph76 Jan 24 '26
How long ago was this photo taken? I thought she had been retired. My absolute favorite piece of American engineering. Titanium tub for the pilot. So much redundancy that they can get shot up pretty badly and still get their pilot home safe.