The U.S. military does sell certain surplus aircraft, but they are gutted of all weapon-related electronics and hardware. An A-10 without the cannon would make a nice lawn ornament or display in front of the VFW hall.
But the A-10's are more likely to sit in a Southwestern boneyard until they're cut up and sold as aluminum scrap.
This is my favorite plane of all time. Since I was a child I've loved it. Even more so as an FO calling in CAS. These things saved many lives and terrorized many of our enemies. A tank stood no chance when an A10 had him pegged for termination.
I've seen them bring their pilots back after having a wing nearly blown off with one engine left and a flat tire up front. With these covering the ground and some F16s providing support, troops can move without resistance from enemy tanks or dug in infantry.
The AF has done this before only to bring them back, so hopefully that'll be the case yet again.
I had a SCAR 17 and 16. I also had a bunch of Glocks and a couple H&K pistols. Oh and a DDM4, but I sold everything when our government told me these dangerous tools can actually hurt someone. Apparently they grow legs and go on killing sprees.
Mothball'em. Someday we're liable to need them. While they're at it, if the tooling to build them still exists, the government should buy and/or preserve it. Remember the battleships? For that matter, haven't they tried to retire this bird before? Isn't it a good thing we had it in Iraq 1 and Iraq 2?
"The Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." -Thomas Jefferson
Gun-crazy? Me? I'd say the gun-crazy ones are the ones that don’t HAVE one.
Hold the phone! It may not be dead yet! Although it sounds like the AF would have kept them close to battle ready status, how long would it have taken to get them back on the flight line?
The Warthog as a regular flyer would be AWESOME! I hope they don't just mothball them! I would actually spend the time, and money to get a pilot's license, and be licensed to fly that sucker. That would ROCK!
I'm personally acquainted with most of them. They were put together and flown out of Hagerstown, Md. The only thing newly designed on the plane was the GAU-8 and the plane's maintainability. It is a true STOL with a bomb capacity of a B-17. The airfoil was designed in the 1930's. The engines were already in inventory on Navy S-3's. All landing gear folds forward allowing slipstream deployment if needed. The main landing gear is B-58 nose gear. The entire tail section can be swapped right to left - fewer spare parts to stock. The engines can be swapped right to left in less than an hour. All flight systems can be readily accessed. The entire underside, nose to tail is covered with access doors.
Design is such that it can sustain a direct hit from below (excluding exploding any ordinance it was carrying) and still have controllable flight. The pilot is encased in an armored titanium "bathtub." The engines are mounted high so that a hit from a heat seeker would just blow that engine off and away from the plane. It can lose one engine AND 50% of the tail - same side or opposite sides- and still get home. She has triple redundant control systems with separate hydraulic reservoirs. If both hydraulic fail, the pilot can select manual reversion. Name another plane that can do that. The twin tail sections are connected by a torque tube so that if one side is damaged and uncontrollable the bolts will shear and the pilot gets home using the other half leaving the damaged section to flap in the breeze.
The four fuel tanks (self-sealing Mareng cells) are packed with reticulated foam cut 5% oversized to prevent fuel cell explosions. Ignition inside a cell is simply snuffed out and the propagating wave is met with the equivalent of a thousand mattresses. Just a small puff of white smoke comes out of the vent (this happened several times at Hagerstown during initial fuel flows) with no damage other than some scorched foam.
Its original purpose was to counter the large Soviet armor inventory in Europe. Early plans had a single A-10 operating off of roads and cow pastures, hence the long legged gear. The only ground support would two trailers, one with a Mareng cell of fuel and the other with several drums for the GAU-8.
All in all it's a wonderful bird and has proven itself over and over.
Karl Years ago it was suggested that, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." But since all the doctors are now Muslim, I've found that a bacon sandwich works great!
