Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.
ill be an old man by 2040! 
Whats that? Warthogs going out in ought' 40 you say? i couldnt quite understand ye. its this darn hearing aid again. Back in Ought' 11, the United states air force had so many warthogs, they filled the sky hehehe. Those were the days. Did you know computers usually only had 8 gigabytes of Ram in those days!! And ran Direct x11! oh my were they slow! |
Guess you have never heard of upgrading avionics systems.This is done all the time no single airframe stays up to date for very long and needs to be improved.In some cases like the B-52 and it should seem the A-10 the basic airframe can be extended many years.This does not mean that from an electronic standpoint that a B-52H of 2011 or A-10 of 2011 is anything like what came of the production line originally.(not sure if you are being sarcastic in your post or what)
A few times during Vietnam the USAF who got all their A-1s from ex-Navy stock(they stopped building them in the late 50's) looked into starting limited production of A-1s but it was determined to have been too expensive.
I think today the best option is the A-10C and some sort of smaller turboprop like the Texan II or the Tucano will work nicely.A new A-1 would be more costly because they'd have to use the old radial engines which require much more maintenance than turbofans and turboprops do and it would need to have modernized avionics making it very expensive.The A-1 was an impressive plane but its time has passed and it deserves its retirement.
That is why a modern turboprop like a Texan II with some upgrades is a very good match with the A-1OC you'd have the Hunter and the Killer.Much like the AH-1 and OH-6 back in Vietnam or the AH-64 and OH-58 today.
@Syxx that is because the Michigan ANG flies A-10s they are based at Selfridge where ever that is in Michigan.Another ANG unit that swapped F-16s for A-10s.
Hope no one is an F-16 fan because the oldest ones are going to become QF-16s for use at Tyndall.If you do not knew Q stands for drone....target drone in other words missiles says boom QF-16 is "retired".