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Originally Posted by rcaf_777
Well I guess is all depends on how you look at the A-10 combat record, this article here, states that according to air force records over 80% of the CAS missions where by other aircraft. Now it also looks at how the stats were collected, but the point is other aircraft could do the roll
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/...10-retirement/
I also think that aircraft while a good design, is past its prime with airframes around 33-42 years old. An interesting note is the large structural cracks that found in the wings during inspections in 93-95 this led to the HOG UP program in 1999 which fixed and upgraded the A-10.
While the A-10 has gotten a lot of press for its limited combat missions, I think it is a good idea that the air force look at other options such as the Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano, Textron’s AT-6 Wolverine and the Air Tractor’s OA-802 Longsword. It should also be looking at unmanned options as well.
I also wonder if CAS/COIN aircraft should be given over to the army as ultimately they will the ones needing them.
Anyway it a long way till 2022. |
One line tells me that the Chair Force has no idea what they are doing "Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh has said, “We’ve flown a number of close air support missions with multiple airplanes,” including the
B-1 bomber, F-15E, and F-16."
Using a B-1 Bomber for close air support? Having spent the second half of my career as EOD my personal experience with Air Force close air support was that using specialty munitions do not work, we got sent in after the fact to destroy the classified guidance package on smart munitions that did not go off, and clean up the cluster bomb field that because the pilot did not follow the procedures for deploying them did not activate correctly. As for having close air support cover us the only unit I have first hand experience with is the AH-64, but the A-10 does about the same job with direct fire gun/missiles, and the Apache worked very well.