The Army should offer the AH-64 for the A-10 and derivative craft.

If the Army goes ahead with this, they should be bought used at $1 million apiece. The Marines should buy 100-125. The ideal close air support aircraft for the best close air support pilots. It wouldn't deploy as a carrier wing, but their supplies can move by sea and once land bases are available, flying them into theater is no problem.

Britain should pick up 50 or so, to up their leverage and importance in any future international deployments, and cement their status as the next-best fighting force to America's. It would give them a capability they currently lack, even with their Harriers and Tornados. I'd recommend this as an amazingly smart move by Canada instead to create the Canadian Air Expeditionary Wing for U.S. cooperation and U.N. deployment, but they'd never do it.

South Korea should pick up 50-75, for all-too-obvious reasons. Israel should pick up 50 of its own, for equally obvious reasons. And we should give 20 to the Afghans, possibly via a "Flying Tigers" type setup.

Ideally, however, the USAF would simply come to their senses and choose to just keep the planes.

"South Korea should pick up 50-75, for all-too-obvious reasons. Israel should pick up 50 of its own, for equally obvious reasons. And we should give 20 to the Afghans, possibly via a "Flying Tigers" type setup."

Hell, lets give 'em to the Iraqis! The terrain there is perfect for their use, at least in the South, West and parts of the South-East. Nice flat, open territory, no where to hide, no where to place a couple of SAMS for some up the kilt shots. And the Iraqis no doubt would fully understand their importance, considering how much damage the A-10 did to them.

Joe:
Interesting proposal. I also conclude that it's time for the Congress and the administration to take a very hard line with the 1947 Key west agreement and throw it out. The A 10 should go to the ground forces. The air force will scream and succumb to a temper tantrum but that'll be the moment to sack the dead wood. Those fighter pilot jocks have always been snobs when it comes to ground support so if they don't want the job give the planes to those who will.

xavier

I speak as a former USAF F-15 pilot, and someone who happened to fly with Dave Deptula back in the day. Most fighter pilots I know have nothing but respect for the A-10 and fully support the CAS mission.

There's no snobbery to it. Those guys on the ground may well include our brothers, or sons, or brothers-in-law. Or even one of us, pulling a ground FAC tour with the Army.

That said, I'd be a liar if I denied that the USAF, as an entity, has never gotten behind the CAS mission or the A-10, despite the A-10's demonstrated success. Right now the USAF's wagons are circled, protecting the F/A-22. Let's hope some of that energy is left to protect the JSF in three or four years, because it will replace the A-10 in the CAS role.

Regards,
Skid

Pray tell, how well armored is JSF? How is ANYTHING supposed to do CAS without the titanium bathtub, etc? Or are you going to pray it won't get hit?

Nichevo,

How did we do CAS before the the A-10 came along with its titanium bathtub?

Are you suggesting we didn't?

Skid

Skid:

You're an old Eagle driver, I just used to code for them. Well, flight computer and AFMSS, but I digress. Still, wouldn't you agree that CAS + single engine = uh-oh ?

The problem is that CAS is treated as a stepchild role by the USAF. They don't believe in it, don't take the time to make sure it's done well, and sometimes have to be hassled to see it's done at all. That "A" on the 22 has to be some kind of marketing stunt.

CAS is critical, and ignoring it means lives lost. Seriously, if the Air Force isn't willing to take care of it, the role should be handed to someone who is more willing.

Bathtub, redundancy, etc. Skid, wasn't the previous dedicated CAS aircraft the AD-3 Skyraider? Between them I believe the F-105 was highly used--but I also believe that aircraft had a checkered record and took many losses. CAS is a low-and-slow mission. You are certainly welcome to ask for the Skyraider back if you like, or the P-51 or P-47.

If you like to drive your F-15 ($50MM vs $3MM for the A-10, BTW, IIRC) at 200 knots and 200 feet into a nest of T-80s and Zsu-23s and try to pick off tanks with your 20mm, well you are very brave, but IMHO underprepared (yes I understand you can carry missiles and bombs, all of which could equally be used by B-52s or UAVs) and, I should think, at the edge of your crate's performance envelope. Which I imagine would not be well served by retrofitting a few tons of armor and a GAU-8/A.

The A-10 is precisely optimized for its mission. A successor airframe would constitute more of the same, plus maybe refinements like composite armor, vectored thrust engine, etc. Perhaps Rutan's Scaled Composites prototype from a few years back will please you. But that ain't aupersonic either, though it is pretty. If you don't want the mission why don't you give it to the Army?

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I agree with Skid, on one major point: procurement dollars determine strategic direction, rather than the other way around. In a battlefield of
shrinking dollars, projects, and most importantly, opportunities, aerospace
projects are so large now that they are the victims of their own weight
(remember, this is the DoD that brought you "co-opetition" because it believed,
however short-sightedly, that fewer projects would save Taxpayer dollars, with
the outcome of reducing several viable military aerospace contractors down to
three major companies (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin).

Once upon a time, back in days of yore, military projects were smaller, and were
spread across a varied and viable industrial infrastructure that was chock-full
of ideas and innovation. While some might argue that smaller projects entailed
higher costs, I point out that if a weapons system was unsuccessful, or else
failed to live up to its advertised expectations, it could either be used for
another mission (a la F-111, which, as I recall, was originally planned as a
Navy fighter as well as USAF, but grew too heavy for carrier ops), or else
cancelled without a great deal of fanfare (a la AH-56, still one of the best
helicopters that never flew). Thems were the old days, though, and like all
other history, are long gone.

Now that the Boeing/NorthGrum/LockMart troika rule aerospace procurement, and
aerospace weapons systems development project scopes have grown so large (and so
very, very expensive), these projects run the risk of sinking not only
themselves under their own weight, but also the sponsoring company,
congressional/senatorial districts, and the sponsoring service(s). You know the
story: every project is initially borne out of someone's idea of combating a
strategic issue. To gather momentum within political, military, and industrial
circles, the project sponsor makes promises that expand scope (and cost). Once
the project gets funded, the industrial partner attempts to build to scope while
remaining within budget, while the military project managers demand additional
scope without the budget to pay for it. If the project is "sold" well, project
managers will cover scope creep by stretching the development cycle (even though
the AH-56 project was over budget and behind schedule, when has an air vehicle
project EVER fielded ten flying prototypes within three years of initial
funding, after 1968???). While development cycles are stretched, and flying
prototypes are cut back, the military/political/industrial team fights ongoing
budget battles on the Hill and at the Pentagon to keep the project "sold".
Stretching development timelines increases obsolescence potential, especially
with electronics and software, causing the development budget to become further
inflated by the fact that items developed at the beginning of the phase are
obsoleted before initial units are fully tested. Meanwhile, to further cover
inflated development costs, planners and politicians sacrifice production units
in an attempt to "prove" that they reduced the overall project cost. Eventually,
the air vehicle gets fielded, and by the time it does, the infrastructure
guarding its existence (and procurement funding) is so solid that strategy must
be re-arranged to fit the vehicle's capabilities.

Once in a proverbial blue moon, someone comes along with an idea that is not
only technically feasible, but is also practical, cost-effective, and fits
military strategy solidly. Ususally such humans are weeded out of existence by
those who jealously guard budgets. Back in the old days, as such, there were
enough weapons systems available to allow alternative uses if something didn't
get built, or if it (once deployed) didn't meet original goals. Now, however, if
a weapons system development project fails, its failure is so large that it
brings down with it the contractor and tribal knowledge used to build similar
systems. Meanwhile, development cycles that once took 5-7 years now stretch
beyond 25.

For example, if JSF development cycle gets stretched once F-16 reaches the end
of its useful life, what will replace it? Ditto E/A-6B? Or, who can say with a
straight face that JSF can adequately replace A-10? If Comanche ever gets
deployed, given that its mission was originally intended combat high-technology
Soviet AA radars on a European battlefield, what will its role be? With a
reduced Russian air force, what will F/A-22 fight against? Bin Laden on a
Persian flying carpet?

I don't have a spectacular resume like Skid's. Mine is littered with the detrius
of spending other people's money, and includes a stint at a major aerospace
contractor, where I once had clearance. I purchased electronic equipment for an
air vehicle in development, and recall fondly the military and industrial
partners scrambling to cover their collective asses when the project was
stretched without budget to cover IT obsolescence. Intel had given the military
in general a collective thumbing back in the late '90's when it stopped
manufacturing dedicated CPUs and other chips to military specs. So when the
development timeline was stretched, and dollars to upgrade aircraft computer
systems dried up, there was a mad scramble to locate enough Pentium (not Pentium
II, III, or IV) processors to last through air vehicle #89, now slated for
deployment in 2011. Remember, the Pentium CPU was brand new in 1995. They
finally found some sitting in a warehouse in the Far East. Also, if that
particular computer system is not upgraded, the systems contractor will have to
build its own version of another important chip, no longer built by the
commercial sector. Unit costs for this chip as-built by the military contractor
will be tens of times higher than initially priced when the chip was being
manufactured commercially. Meanwhile, although plans continue to upgrade that
computer system, as of late last year, those plans were funded only through
initial planning stages.

There are PC software simulations available for aircraft such as F-22 and
Comanche. I used to joke to colleagues that the next version of those simulators
should not be ones that you fly; instead, the simulator is a project planning
software system such as MS Project: if you can build and deploy the aircraft
within 25 years or less, you win! Your opponents are: your "co-opetition"
industrial "partners", other project managers within your own service branch,
politicians, and anyone else who suckles at the Federal Budget Teat for a
living. Can you beat the odds...?

If the Air Force gets to the point that they don't want the A-10's, then give them to the Army to fly.