Air Force completes A-10 re-winging to
keep iconic aircraft flying into 2030s
Washington Times,
by
Douglas Ernst
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
8/13/2019 4:44:58 PM
The iconic A-10 Thunderbolt II will be flying into the late 2030s thanks to a re-winging project completed by the U.S. Air Force. Air Force Materiel Command said in a press release on Monday that 162 A-10s received new wings thanks to a $1.1 billion project that began in 2011. The contract, awarded to Boeing in 2007, required the creation of new parts for the plane’s fuselage. “At the end of the program, making sure we had all the pieces and parts that we needed to make that happen required a really significant team effort,” said Stephen Zaiser, director of the 571st, Air Force
Reply 1 - Posted by:
TulsaTowner 8/13/2019 4:59:35 PM (No. 151288)
Don't know how this project managed to slip through, but someone deserves a medal for common sense.
21 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
DVC 8/13/2019 5:27:50 PM (No. 151302)
The top Air Force brass has tried and tried to kill the A-10, it just isn't cool enough, straight wings and subsonic, for gosh sakes!
But it is very effective against armored vehicles, and fairly survivable against ground threats if it has fighter cover. Would not do well against MiGs. But that isn't it's job.
10 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
JL80863 8/13/2019 5:31:40 PM (No. 151307)
About the only branch of service that doesn't love the A10 is the Air Force.
13 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Submariner 8/13/2019 5:55:19 PM (No. 151329)
$6,790,123 per plane or $3,395,061 per wing. The A-10 is a lethal machine and I am a fan, but something's amiss with these costs.
2 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
LadyHen 8/13/2019 5:56:51 PM (No. 151333)
Since I was a kid, I have loved Warthogs, always looked for them at airshows.
Good mini-documentary called "Grunts in the Sky: The A-10 in Afghanistan" that military.com posted last year. Check it out.
https://www.military.com/video/aircraft/tactical-aircraft/grunts-in-the-sky-the-a-10-in-afghanistan/5700506561001
4 people like this.
The A-10 is hands down the best close air support vehicle ever deployed. The quiche-eaters in the Air Force hate it, but the soldiers, marines, and special forces on the ground depend on it to get them back home to their loved ones.
8 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Omen55 8/13/2019 6:22:36 PM (No. 151367)
They should just transfer the Warthogs to the army so it can fly with the Apache.
7 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
varkdriver 8/13/2019 6:37:25 PM (No. 151383)
I beg to differ with my fellow posters, but the Air Force, with the exception of a few misguided senior officers, really do love the Hawg. She will get the job done in fine style and make our enemies around the world wish Mr. Gatling had never invented his fine machine...
8 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
bad-hair 8/13/2019 6:50:15 PM (No. 151402)
This thing can land with one wing after having beat the crap out of its targets. Of course you're going to make more of them.
4 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
chumley 8/13/2019 6:50:58 PM (No. 151404)
Its an impressive plane. I once saw one fly sideways between two barracks buildings. Thought the wing tip was going to drag the ground.
What was wrong with the wings in the first place? Article doesn't say.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
JunkYardDog 8/13/2019 7:00:39 PM (No. 151413)
This HAS to be a mistake! NO ONE in the Armed Forces could have made such a great decision on purpose!
All kidding aside, every single Marine and trooper knows the A-10 has their back. I pity the fools who feel the business end of that !@#$%! gatling gun.
7 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
curious1 8/13/2019 7:41:08 PM (No. 151431)
Hey, AF, while you're having some new parts created, make about 350 more A-10s, while you're at it. We're gonna need them in the pacific.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Vesicant 8/13/2019 8:04:13 PM (No. 151440)
And the A-10 doesn't need an umbrella, unlike some other planes (cough F-35 cough) I won't mention.
#5, you don't buy airplane wings at the local dollar store. Design, build, test, integration, flight qualification, spares, none of that is cheap. If they were going to put new sails on an SSN or SSBN, how much would you expect that to cost?
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
panther361 8/13/2019 8:41:25 PM (No. 151459)
An all around excellent tank buster.
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Sergeant Major 8/13/2019 9:38:39 PM (No. 151498)
Two of the sweetest sounds to a grunt are a chopper and the A10. The non military folks will- never realize what that means.
3 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
DVC 8/14/2019 12:12:11 AM (No. 151575)
Fun story. A friend was an AF A-10 pilot. He went to the USAF competition for their ground attack 'Top Gun' contest, in his manual simple bombsight, minimal electronics A-10. He WON, beating all the F-16 and F-15 hot shots with his "uncool and slow" aircraft. One target was a tank hulk, with a 6" diameter piece of steel
pipe welded to the top turret as a vertical reference for iron bomb hits. Observers 90 deg to each other had
scopes with range markings to measure the distance the bomb hit was from the "pin".
There was a substatial delay after his first bomb run to weld the pipe back on the tank turret. He HIT it
and knocked it off. LOL!
So, how did the F-16 and F-15 folks take getting drubbed by an uncool A-10? The disinvited the
A-10s from the competitions in future years. Talk about sore losers. And they just HATED proving that the fast jets sucked at close air support when they were continuously lobbying to get rid of the
A-10s and replace them with F-16s and F-15 who "can do the same job, even better".....well except if
you actually measure their performance in a competition.
4 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
DVC 8/14/2019 12:13:35 AM (No. 151576)
hogwash, #14. Non factual. Repeating non-facts over and over doesn't make them true. My nephew flies F-35s, and has personally verified that this is bunk.
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
geoguy 8/14/2019 5:37:22 AM (No. 151681)
I’ve read several articles and nobody comes out and says what the problem is. I believe it has to do with cracks in the wings a repair that is hard to access. Since the last A-10 was built in 1984 I am assuming they are stress cracks with age. Somebody else has a better answer or help me out.
3 people like this.
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"Iconic" means "causes potential enemies to tremble in abject horror."