The Israelis retired the F4 all of 12 years ago & by then it wasn’t used much.

Exactly!

They fall down on survivability though.

Then why are the 70's vintage F16s still not flying?

The thousands of scrapped f-16s from the 70s also beg to differ with you!

Hard to see past the existing A-10....

If we use that metric then the A-10 could be kept flying until 2040.

Who would refurbish it if not a ‘defence firm’?

The stresses exerted on a fighter of any kind are greater than that on something like the B52, they have aged better accordingly.

$18m..... 32 years ago.

The ST is built under license at a facility in Jacksonville..... those that were, were handed over to the Afghan air force.

The problem is the Air Force doesn’t want to replace the A-10 with another durable, slow moving attack plane. They want to ‘replace’ it with the F35.

As long as they can get parts to refurb the airframe there is no need to replace it for the foreseeable future

Have a great day!

It can hold 6 paratroopers.

I keep hearing

Perhaps, but I doubt the factories are available, as the last one was built 32 years ago.

I’d be all about the Super Tucano too.

Law or no law, it can’t keep flying forever.

Alright, you want a wall of text you get a wall of text.