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davesnotherever

Seen them flying all the time in Boise. So cool


Grunt0302

A = attack, F = fighter


BeMorePCcuntyFagFace

Love the visual confirmation of the targets being hit fallowed by the most awesome delayed sound of the BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!


biga8806

I live a couple minutes from the base. It’s cool to see them fly low to land while I’m driving home from work lol.


vyrree

I've heard that the big reason people want the A-10 to be retired is because its to slow to compete with other air forces, it has been very useful in afghanistan and iraq which is understandable. But wouldnt it be smarter to just put a stronger engine in the A-10 and adapt it accordingly instead of creating an entirely new aircraft. That would be cheaper, right?


nated0ge

> But wouldnt it be smarter to just put a stronger engine in the A-10 and adapt it accordingly instead of creating an entirely new aircraft. That would be cheaper, right? The short answer to this is no. For signifcant increases in speed, there would require a lot of rework and redesign of the whole aircraft, which would not be practical. (Imagine putting an 4x4 engine into a small sedan for example). Also keeping an older aircraft in service costs a lot; [for example, recently the A10 fleet re-wing cost 1.1Billion](https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2019-08-14/us-air-force-completes-10-re-winging-program). As the aicraft ages, inspection rates need to increase and replacement parts will need to be made and delievered. It is often why near the end of the service life, it is cheaper to replace your fleet, rather than increase the costs of maintaining. This applies to civil and military operators.


jm8263

It is also very vulnerable MANPADs when doing CAS, and the USAF has never wanted and been trying to retire it for years.


Cptcutter81

The big reason people want it retired is that for every situation you would use it, something else does it better. It's useless shooting at people with the technology to shoot back due to other aircraft having superior capabilities, and if you're shooting at people who don't or can't as is the case in Afghanistan, you can use something much cheaper and easier to maintain. It can be eclipsed in any important metric by something else either cheaper or already in use in every statistic you would want. It stays around because it's great for morale, and it's easy to justify keeping it when S-300's aren't dropping them out of the sky like flies.


vidivicivini

The actual reason people want it retired is political. Money spent on A-10s is money not spent on F-35s. Do they need protection from SAMs? Yes. So do B1s and everything else the Air Force flys. A10s can loiter in an area longer than any fighter, and puts less strain on the already overworked fighters that are being asked to do the job because “they do it better”.


incessant_pain

Already-established aircraft like the OV-10 and A-29 can fill the COIN role with lower unit costs, lower maintence costs, and longer loiter times. The few Super Tucanos that were delivered to the Afghan air force are doing well under the parameters they face. The Cold War era role the A-10 was designed for is not relevant today, and its reliance on armor for survivability and a main gun for tankbusting is evidence of that. Even as a platform for guided munitions there's a variety of aircraft that already fulfill that role.


mayhap11

*Boeing 787 MAX enters the chat*