A-10 Warthogs Could Serve Until 2040

[Stealhead]

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".

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

(not sure if you are being sarcastic in your post or what).

It wasn't even sarcasm. He was just making a little joke about how old he'll be then. I thought it was pretty good.

[Stealhead]

Yeah I did not really even think about that I suppose it makes alot of sense then what he said though he wont be all that old I will in my early 60s by 2040 I will be "old". He will still be 25 years from retiring while I will be only 10 years from retiring if things keep going the way they do.

Who knows maybe the singularity will have occurred by then and we will all be slaves of now much smarter than humans self aware computers who will electronically laugh at our primitive aircraft.Maybe we will use A-10s and B-52s to bomb Skynet.

[Sailor Steve]

If I'm still around I'll be 90, and probably won't care much one way or the other. But whatever happens I'll probably say "See? I told you so!"




And of course "Get off my lawn!"

[Feuer Frei!]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

And of course "Get off my lawn!"

You'll be ok Steve:

[Stealhead]

Back to the A-10 for a minute; I can fondly recall once while I was stationed at Ramstein AB in Germany driving along the flight line on some odd errand with an fresh from tech airman.We rode past two F-16s and an A-10 that had stopped over from Spanghlem AB which is where they sent all the F-16s that used to fly out of RA in 1993 RA and the A-10s from various bases in West Germany is mostly a cargo base now.RA is close enough to SP that it is used as a diversion base in case of weather or in flight emergencies.

This young airman had never really seen any combat aircraft up close before and wanted to stop so I agreed.There where three planes but only one pilot standing by one of the Vipers.So we ask him what happened to the others.

Turned out this captain had accidentally locked his canopy and well the "keys" are 60 miles away so his wingmen left him to wait for the SP guards to show up which was taking some time.What was really funny was that this Viper pilot clearly envied the A-10 pilot said the Hog was a more fun plane to fly than the Viper and decided that he was going to request that he be assigned to one of the Hog squadrons when he got back to base. The young airman was surprised a pilot would prefer the A-10 to an F-16 or 15. I wonder if he locked his canopy on purpose in the vain hope that theyd simply assign him to Hogs seeing as he could not handle the complex nature of the Vipers egress systems.

[Oberon]

Nice.

We used to get the Hogs over from the 81st TFW at Bentwaters and Woodbridge. I remember one banking low over my primary school, so low I could see the Warthog face on the side of the plane. It was a terrible shame when they all left in 1993.

Here's a couple of A-10 related shots from the Bentwaters Cold War Museum:




What an awesome plaque to be given, eh? Big salute to MSGT Robert D. Hale Jr