In one operation or another, it’s been in constant use since 1990. These are aircraft that are 3x over their design structure life. They’re already on borrowed time now.
TriggerTreats
TriggerTreats
A-10’s thirsty too. It’s loiter time is measured in minutes.
You want an aircraft that uses the same targeting pods as the A-10, can carry more bombs than both the A-10 and the F-15E and has a loiter time measured in hours?
A-29B. Too bad Congress fucked that up.
People STILL whine about that. There’s a guy on FB now who’s going to do everything in his power to bring it back. I guess once his page gets 200K likes, the Pentagon will HAVE to bring it back, right?
The Jordanian’s problem was parachuting into an area that was totally under ISIL control and where CSAR wasn’t an option. Plenty of pilots - of both single and multi-engine aircraft had to punch out over Vietnam and Iraq and despite the abuse they got at the hands of their captors, they weren’t burned alive for the…
A Hog went low with it’s gun in Syria and got shot all to shit. He barely made it home. They pulled A-10s from Syria as a result. No one’s going to risk a repeat of what happened to that Jordanian pilot.
Nobody calls it “Thunderbolt II” except PR people. It’s the Hog. Always has been, always will be.
The AF generals do not give two shits about the ground troops
And the fact that they’re continually trying to kill it
What’s the problem?
More powerful engines?
More fuel?
Durable airframe with more ordinance capacity?
You got it!!!
A10 will survive in theater much better than an A29
In SE Asia we had a mix of B-52s, F-105s, A-1s, OV-10s, AH-1s, F-4s, F-100s, A-4s, A-6s...it was a plethora of air-to-ground aircraft. Look how that turned out. COIN is not determined by air power. Never has, never will be. If anyone tells you differently, they’re an idiot. COIN is a LONG, bloody and EXPENSIVE…
trying so hard to put the old girl out to pasture, rather prematurely I might add
A-29B is better suited for the COIN air support role in a permissive environment than a UCAV. We would have a few squadrons of those by now if certain Congressmen hadn’t put their reelections in front of our security needs.
Air Force has been trying to kill it ever since.
Somewhere after WW2 and the Korean war, the U.S. military became infatuated with high tech, ridiculously expensive platforms
What's the first thing they'll do with this in the field? Disable the "password" or whatever they use to secure it with because no one wants to deal with that shit when they're taking fire. And what a great time to NOT have security, but when you're most likely to be overrun.
data links and computer systems that could be jammed, infiltrated, hijacked or hacked by a capable foe. That is precisely why a low-down and fairly simple form of CAS have to remain in America's quiver.