Yup. The wanted an aircraft that was survivable in a non-permissive environment and wouldn't take a week to arrive on scene if CAS was needed. The USAF said "Well, we've got a bunch of these F-16s. They drop bombs pretty damn well and their pilots are coming from the F-4 and A-7 communities. Will those work?" To which…

Yeah. It's 35 years old, it's airframe ain't getting any younger and there a half dozen other platforms that can - and have - been doing the same job as the A-10 for the past decade or so. A-10s have been responsible for only 15% of CAS missions over the past decade.

"The Warthog's straight wing maneuverability, heavy armor, defensive suite, honeycomb construction and redundant systems allows it to venture down into the MANPADS (shoulder fired head-seeking missile) engagement envelope, an area where no other fixed wing military aircraft was actually built to operate in."

The A-10…

Transferring A-10s to the Army. I LOVE this argument by armchairs

- Where will all these A-10s be based, both here and abroad?

The same TR-3 "Black Manta" that's been rumored to have existed since the 1991 Gulf War, where it was supposedly designating targets for the F-117? And in the past 23 years, while we've seen F-22, F-23, X-32, X-35, Boeing's Bird of Prey, Tacit Blue, Polecat, General Atomics Avenger, RQ-170, X-45, X-47, Dassault…

Thank you for proving the point of the article.

Unintentional?

Pretty early on.

This is where they're stored while they're waiting to be sold for scrap. Some of them are placed into long term storage (the dry, salt-free air doesn't corrode the airframe) to be sold off as surplus to allies. The US Navy bought a handful of zero-time F-16A/Bs that had been in long-term storage here after they were…

Well, the official name of the F-16 is "Fighting Falcon" but nobody calls them by that name. It's either "Viper" or "Lawn Dart" or "Raptor Training Aid."

B-1B's official name is "Lancer" but no one calls it that; it's "Bone."

The "Thunderbolt II" is better known as "Warthog." "Corsair II" was called "SLUF"

You can call…

So? I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

"...and it doesn't hurt that it's the second prettiest plane ever made, either.

"but none of these games are the type of "battle" they will be used in.... mostly because what we need today involves fighting individuals, and not countries."

Guess we can scrap the entire US Navy then. I'll bet you're raking in millions every week in lottery winnings from your crystal ball.

There was a Tuskegee Airman version too.

I interpreted his comments as a reference to Gen. Robin Olds' mentality towards running a fighter squadron. Olds was a triple ace having served in WWII and Vietnam (16 total kills between the two wars). Olds is highly regarded as one of the best wing commanders of the Vietnam War both for his air-to-air fighting…

The Blue Angel and Blackbird versions were nice too.

"recalled back to the factory for elaborate rework modifications"

Pierre Sprey has never designed any jet aircraft, he's only designed his public image.

Yup, and there were several such proposals by General Dynamics. The FB-111G would have been a larger aircraft, larger payload, greater range... FB-111H was the proposal that got the most exposure to the public.

Yeah, the H concept truly looked like a pregnant Aardvark. I think the idea behind it wasn't horrible, it just couldn't compete with an intercontinental bomber. The H would have needed a larger wing area for the plane to be worth a damn. Bigger wings? It could have been a great long range strike aircraft.