Air Force ‘starving’ A-10 fleet of needed upgrades, documents show
By DAVID WICHNER
THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR • May 15, 2022
TUCSON, Ariz. (Tribune News Service) — The Air Force has for now dropped plans to retire most of the A-10 ground-attack jets that form a major mission at Tucson’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, after the plan was rebuffed by Congress last year.
But the Air Force is again moving to retire some A-10s, and recently revealed documents show more than half of the A-10s in service aren’t deployable overseas because the Air Force is starving the aging fleet of critical maintenance and upgrades.
The Pentagon in its recent fiscal 2023 budget request has proposed retiring 21 A-10s from the Indiana Air National Guard, contending it needs to start retiring older platforms like the A-10 to invest in weapons that can meet modern-day threats posed by peer adversaries like Russia and China.
Last year, Congress blocked the Air Force’s plan to divest 42 A-10s, including 35 at Davis-Monthan, as part of a plan to turn D-M into a center for combat search and rescue units.
https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2022-05-15/air-force-starving-a-10-fleet-of-needed-upgrades-6011468.html
