Good News: The Air Force Wants to Re-Wing and Keep 112 A-10 Warthogs

[rangerrebew]

August 13, 2019

Good News: The Air Force Wants to Re-Wing and Keep 112 A-10 Warthogs

Excellent.
by Gabriele Barison

As we have previously explained, over the past several years the A-10 received little support from the USAF that instead pushed to retire the Warthog from FY15 onward.

According Jane’s, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to re-wing about 100 of its Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II close air support (CAS) aircraft.

The RFP for the A-10 Thunderbolt Advanced Wing Continuation Kitting (ATTACK) program, which was released on May 25, 2018, calls for the re-winging of 112 aircraft over five annual ordering periods, with the option for two more years after that.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/good-news-air-force-wants-re-wing-and-keep-112-10-warthogs-73191

[rangerrebew]

August 13, 2019

See This Strange Looking 'New' A-10 Warthog? It Is Special for 1 Big Reason.

The new wings for the A-10 fleet are expected to last for up to 10,000 equivalent flight hours without a depot inspection.
by Dario Leone

Workers at the Ogden Air Logistics Complex at Hill Air Force Base have installed the last of 173 new wings on A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft, finalizing a project that started in 2011 with aircraft 80-0173.

As explained by  Alex Lloyd, Ogden Air Logistics Complex, in the article From 173 to 173: A-10 Enhanced Wing Assembly program comes to an end, the ALC’s 571st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron swapped wings on 162 A-10s as part of the A-10 Enhanced Wing Assembly replacement program. The remaining 11 were installed at Osan Air Base in the Republic of Korea. 

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/see-strange-looking-new-10-warthog-it-special-1-big-reason-73166

[PeteS in CA]

Morale: The Customer Is Definitely Right

Twelve years after the U.S. Air Force decided to spend about $8 million per aircraft to repair and reinforce the wings on 252 A-10 “Warthog” ground attack aircraft, work was finally completed, in mid-2019 for the first 173 aircraft. The air force has issued a contract to have the remaining aircraft get the new wings. The wing replacement was part of a series of refurbishment and upgrade programs designed to keep the A-10s flying for another twenty years or, as an air force official recently admitted; “indefinitely.” This is another sign of how much the air force attitudes towards the A-10 have changed. Not only that but in 2007 the feeling was that the A-10 may well be the last manned American ground attack aircraft, and the entire fleet was to be upgraded with new electronics, to make the aircraft as effective as possible until the unmanned replacements arrived. But before this 2007 decision could be implemented, factions in the air force leadership sought to once more get rid of the A-10. The main reason for the 2007 refurbishment decision was the fact that the A-10 was the most heavily used ground support aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the most popular with the troops doing the fighting. It still is. The 2007 refurb plan got delayed by a decade of air force efforts kill the A-10 rather than fix its wings and keep it flying. ...

In late 2016 the senior leadership of the U.S. Air Force finally agreed that the A-10 was actually worth keeping. The air force leadership had learned that the A-10 was more than just a popular and effective ground support aircraft. Reserve squadrons revealed that they had quietly developed additional uses that were popular with all combat pilots. With A-10 off death row, a lot of uses that had been kept quiet were now not only out in the open but getting more financial support. Chief among these is CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue). To that end, the air force has, so far, equipped 19 A-10Cs with the LARS V-12 emergency radio signal locator. All American warplanes are equipped with an emergency radio that pilots carry and when they eject and are on the ground this handheld radio broadcasts a special signal. Rescue aircraft (usually air force CSAR helicopters) have LARS and the latest (V-12) version quickly tells the LARS user what direction the signal is coming from and how far away it is. Even before the 2016 decision to stop trying to retire A-10s, there were plans to equip a lot (perhaps all) A-10s with LARS.

The air force leadership, during the decades they were dedicated to retiring the A-10, did not like to discuss the usefulness of A-10s in CSAR missions. Yet this was a very popular use of the A-10 because when a pilot had to eject and was on the ground, they quickly learned that if you had the enemy nearby looking for you, what you wanted to see first was not a rescue helicopter, but a heavily armed and armored low-flying “hog” that would make sure the rescue chopper and the downed pilots were not hurt. The A-10s regularly came in low and slow seeking out enemy troops and was, unlike most aircraft, designed and armored to deal with a lot of enemy fire and keep fighting.
...
... But when the A-10 did get to demonstrate its CSAR capabilities during the 1991 Gulf War, there were still some Vietnam era pilots around who made the A-1/A-10 CSAR connection vividly clear. The A-10 CSAR capabilities were obvious to pilots. The A-10 is built to fly low and slow and better survive any ground fire it encounters. A-10s being jets could get to where the downed pilot was fast and then go down low to better deal with any enemy ground threat until the air force CSAR helicopters arrived. This was the same method used by A-1s in Vietnam.

How an A-10 would fit into a Combat Search and Rescue scenario is not difficult to figure out. It can get to the downed pilot faster - ~twice the speed of a helicopter - is less vulnerable than a helicopter, and can loiter longer than jet fighters. Once a helicopter arrives the A-10 can provide protection while the helicopter performs the rescue.