Mystery Buyer for A-10s 

hey we need to replace our Snowbird Demonstration Team, why not a fleet of A-10s? They are 30 years younger than what we have now :)

XD

Would fill the gap in the RCAF for the brigade in Latvia until the CF-35A comes online.

Actually they would be great for Canada. You have to take into account that they are being given new wings by Boeing and Canada could join in that program. Not likely happening though.

PUT PONTOONS ON EM THEY'LL FLOAT TOO.!.! CALL'EM "SNOW- HOGS" THAT'LL FLOAT MY BOAT. OH, CANADA>...*_° WISH I COULD GET SPAKED.... 🔱⭐🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲

Or it could bring a whole new meaning to being Swatted...

😂

That was done with the AH-64 image 20 years ago. An oldie but a goodies. 👍

RIGHT! lol. So terrible.

dont mess with texas !

Much as I would love to see that, the Marine Corps purposefully rejected a Super Hornet purchase, at the expense of greater risk to legacy Hornet crews, to maximize our F-35 procurement. Current USMC leadership is full speed ahead on divesting anything irrelevant in the opening phase of a war with China. 20-years ago USMC might have said yes, but now I think the answer would be a hard no.

There’s one issue with the Marines flying A-10s. These aircraft can’t operate from Amphibious Assault ships and Aircraft Carriers. So this aircraft doesn’t fit their requirements.

@@user-pj3ch8ou2h Henderson Field on Guadalcanal and other Marine Corps Air Stations over the decades aren’t Carriers. They’ve flown plenty of Aircraft from land bases.

@@lesliepaulkovacs6442 Marines aircraft at Henderson Field were F-4F Wildcats and SBD Dauntless which were flown there from aircraft carriers.

@@user-pj3ch8ou2h And what Carrier are the Marines C-130s flying from today?

Just googled that. That's one hell if a plane! 😅

Right and since taxpayers already paid for them, they should be given away to US citizens.

​@@everypitchcounts4875 But I'm curious which citizens would get it if so. Feel like they might be sitting in very wealthy people's garages.

so how do you think the Big Brass fund their retirement accounts?

They are not wrong. Ukraine won't even ask for them.

@@oculosprudentium8486 How?

@@noahway13 obviously by ordering the purchase of new equipment and new projects. See also the congressional hearings of how a simple bag of bearings that goes for $10 was sold to the Air Force for $50,000

i can completely understand the hatred. Its a charismatic aircraft, but lets face it. It did good work in Afghanistan where there was essentially no credible surface to air threat. In desert storm 6 of them were shot down and several more damaged. I think that was among the highest loss rate of any fixed wing AND its fighting style lends itself to friendly fire - which it did. The kicker is really trying to justify keeping it. Its old, its maintenance costs are going up and combat experience and testing showed its gun - the only thing it has that other aircraft dont - isnt actually any good for killing tanks. The mission it was supposed to do. The rounds dont penetrate modern armour. The majority of its tank kills with the gun werent kills. They just claimed they hit them so it must be a kill. The actual tank kills were performed using AGM-65's - a missile other platforms carry. So basically in summary, Its out of date, its vulnerable to manpads which are everywhere now, its gun doesnt destroy tanks and to be useful you need to have an out of date, ill equipped enemy force like north korea, its most useful weapon is carried by other less vulnerable platforms and its becoming more andmore maintenance heavy. its soaking up money which would be better spent elsewhere.

When the A-10 was being designed in the late ‘60s the SA-7/Strela-2 was not being fielded in huge numbers, the heavy deployment of it and its more capable successors literally rendered the tactics the A-10 was designed around obsolete the moment the first one left the assembly line. “Big gun go brrrrrrrrrt!” Is really cool fighting illiterate goat herders, not so much against a comparable combined arms force with a coordinated air defense umbrella.

@@kmrtnsn Yes but our soldiers have been fighting those "illiterate goat herders" for the past 23 years and the A-10 covered their a$$ better than any other fixed wing aircraft. The Air Force loves to dogfight and the A-10 doesn't do that well. This is the real reason the Air Force hates the A-10 even though the last significant dogfight the US was in was during Vietnam 40 years ago.

Either the Army or the Marines, but congress must force the AF to give the budget to go with them.

I remember that.

@@who2u333 exactly. 👍🏻

Bureau numbers are a Navy thing. USAF uses tail numbers. Yes it is true.

Friend of mine was a 3rd Gen Buff pilot. He flies another Bird now but his Father and Grandfather all flew the Buff and I would not be surprised the same Aircraft.

That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. My Dad ended up finding the tail number of a plane he accidently dropped a radio box through the horizontal stab while in Thailand. We were at an airshow when I was a kid. You could still make out the patch that was put over the hole where the box went right between the ribs. Plane flew a demo IIRC, but that was like... 30, 35 years ago, www

yeah I think I saw a vid with a B52 pilot stating that he'd flown the same plane that his grandpops and then his pops had flown - maaan thats almost a family heirloom

A10s would be incredibly good in Australia

@@GetBuckAU In a combat environment which is forever changing,the A10 could re-invent itself

Anti ship interdiction for the RAAF (ASM and Torpedos) for naval and commercial shipping or anti drone operations or small craft operations with extra guns pods fitted (30mm+). or converted to unmanned systems

I thought the A10s reputation was a myth and it’s a big piece of junk irl.

​@@carlosandleon Sssshhhhhh let em dream

It was certain tail numbers thay had the "thin" wing. I remember driving up and down the line checking the wing serial number data plates for confirmation.

Every jet got new wings and the program finished some time ago. There's an Air Force Times article that has the details somewhere.

Boeing did the re-wing contract.

It was like 240 wing sets.

Arrgh, forgot to include organically controlled, cheaper 'suicide' drones.

yup

Good one.

South Korea makes sense too give it's proximity to their closest adversary still running, primarily, legacy SAM systems that the A-10 was designed to combat.

I literally came here to post that.

That would be awesome

Removing guns , for goalkeeper 👍 works … Making A-10 Drones 😂 is wacky & useless with Better cheaper, faster, stealthy options currently available now. Like the MQ-25 derivatives 👍

@@ProfessorFickle There are drones with better capabilities in a variety of ways. But none that are more durable than A-10. Also, the air frames already exist, reusing them as drones is cost effective. Stealthy drones serve a different purpose and have different set of strengths and weaknesses. A vast variety and quantity of drones is better than a more limited set and inventory.

@@stupidburp: a-10 made to drones are not cost effective, maintenance hours per flight hour is bad compared to drones .

Fighter Mafia wanted the A-10, they like to take credit for it. They were all for cheap and plentiful aircraft rather than high tech. It's the regular USAF that doesn't like them.

@@apparition13 ironically, the cheap plentiful fighters is what will likely happen with drone warfare.

​@@Jeff55369Its easier to justify cheap platforms when they dont require crew bloodbaths yeah.

The A-10 pilots are incredible. I read and article about the ground pounders who urgently support while their A-10 guardian angels were tanking and while one of them was sucking on a boom he heard the ground guy (FAC?) giving the wrong coordinates to the B-52 which would have dumps his load right on top of the friendlies. The A-10 guy while tanking worked out the correct coordinates for the drop and save a lot of friendly live that day. Bloody amazing that he could do that *and* remain plugged in. I am sure all the Keyboard Kommandos know how easy it to to get plugged in and get filled up with the liquid that turns into noise. Incredible talent sitting in those _bang seats_ and the airforce just want to throw it all away. Their ego just won't allow it to be transferred to the Army. Do you remember the 💩 storm when the Army got assigned the rotary machines and how the air farce fought it and what the compromise was. Anyone would think the airfarce was in hostilities with the other branches of the US military. 🙄 FWIW, I am a big Viper fan and would love to have spent even an hour in one. Also like the -Cessna- Skyhawk _Scooter_ as well; another Incredible hotrod for it's time.

Sad, but true.

If you're gonna copy an aircraft, cant go rong with stealing an Aardvark.

@@dubiumguy Especially if you want to go take out factories, bunkers, Tab-V's and armored formations in the dead of the night.

SU25 is more like a Rusky version of A-37 rather than A-10 IMO.

​@@nevisstkitts8264 A-37 is a COIN aircraft, so no. Also look up the YA-9 that competed against the YA-10.

@@nevisstkitts8264: SU-25 is a copy of American YA-9 . YA-9 and YA-10 competition was Also observed by the Russians not just the Pentagon. Not a copy of the A-37 😂

Not a lot of MANPADS in the Taiwan Straits. Plus air defense on PLAN ships will presumably be busy with fast movers, cruise missiles, etc. A10s can feast on Ro-ros, cargo ships, etc that make up the rest of the flotilla. Taiwan likely has fewer concerns about letting AI fly them, so not as much of a concern about putting them up in contested airspace.

Only problem is it is not a carrier aircraft. But the marines don’t have the aircraft restrictions of the army limited to choppers. Frankly that rule should be tossed with an exception added for support aircraft and bring back a limited army air corps. Leave fighters and long range bombing to the Air Force but the ground forces should be able to develop and use a close support craft. The relationship of the army and air force is much like the navy and marines. Both ground forces dependent on the Navy or Air Force for transport and close air support.

No way, marines would impregnate it.

A-10s can still take a furious hammering and still limp home compared to other aircraft..

@@265justystill doubt they could take a PL-15 to the face

@@Formula1st Name me another plane that could.? 😂

The A-10 was designed to fight a (near) peer war ...

@@265justy the point is the best way to counter modern anti air threats is to not get hit, rather than to try to survive a hit

The production line was closed 40 years ago.

And as a French we should build more Leclercs...but like the A-10 we lost the ability to build them decades ago :(

No, we shouldn’t.

And Sopwith Camels. Those were great in their day too.

Build new ones as drones with ISR and EW pods instead of guns. For low level wild weasel and electronic warfare.

Lol

Those are specifically for the AFSOC, who looked at but didn't want to take over the A-10Cs as they're generally ill-suited to their armed overwatch requirements. They needed CAS / precision strike / ISR with an extremely long loiter time, and less noise than low bypass turbofans. All the contenders in the competition had been turboprops for that reason. The loiter time with 720 gallons of internal fuel is better than 8 hours.

Youre saying that like the A10 is actually filling a hole at all. The reality is even in desert storm the A10's were getting shot down and not actually killing very many tanks, it couldnt fight at night and the very famous friendly fire incident didnt do it any favours. The a10's roles were reduced and other platforms were filling the hole the A10 wasn't ABLE to fill. The f111 killed WAAAY more tanks, could fly day and night and had no losses to the threats that the A10 were so vulnerable to. Its 2024. The style of fighting the A10 was designed for would now be a complete gauntlet run through manpads and radar guided surface to air threats.

Despite the total lack of tail wheel training capability.

@@goodshipkaraboudjan Ummm, adapting to a tail dragger is NOT that hard. The SkyWardens are all going to be dual-seat/dual-control so it will not be difficult to train up the pilots flying for the special operations community. Plenty of instructor pilots with security ratings who are ex-navy, marine, army or air force who could be contracted to do it.

Rework the landing gear to be grass field capable.

For what? It’s wings don’t fold and you can’t fly it off of an LHA/LHD so what good what it be?

@@kmrtnsn Why would the wings need to fold to fly off improvised grass fields?

@@Hatredy11 If the MEU can’t take it with the aboard ship with all the other aircraft what good what it be? The Corps has changed, if it can’t float or fly it’s gone.

@@Hatredy11 It’s why the Broncos went away in the 90’s (besides being old), they did nothing that couldn’t be done with a ship deployable plane or helicopter.

If they wanted it, they would have bought it a long time ago.

Not the same

@kevinblackburn3198 Right, an Apache can loiter for longer time periods and doesn't need to keep making passes

Apache is less likely to cause friendly fire incidents. Better situational awareness of the ground. Better precision in strikes instead of BRRrrrrttt. Gun on a turret to fire in any direction instead of just straight ahead. Wide variety of missiles and rockets available, including some new ones with relatively long ranges.

You have a couple of spitfires if China invaded NZ 😂🇦🇺

What did you do with the 10 SkyHawks Australia sold to you 30 years ago? Thats why you can have anything nice 😂😂😂 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

@cameronhickey7771 they are museum exhibits if there are any still around.

Apache is a better option for South Korea because of the short distances involved and flexibility of the platform.

A drone conversion however would be a great option. I have been suggesting the same for a while now.

Thay are already.

QA-10 optionally manned conversions can replace A-10 with little cost and the technology already exists for other military aircraft such as QF-16.

B52 comes to mind

@@kevinblackburn3198 yeah exactly, it all depends on what’s timed out. If it’s landing gear or something they might have to get creative, but sheet metal just requires plenty of elbow grease.

Convert to drones and the airworthiness cert becomes easier.

Id put my money on south korea. North korea is the main enemy i would assume to have outdated armour that is still vulnerable to the A10's gun, fewer radar guided AAA and SAM threats and i doubt the army is carrying around manpads unless russia is supplying them. MAYBE china would if it smelled a conflict. Given russia is begging North Korea for ammo i doubt it currently.

That would work very well for spotting and leading in aircraft but I very much doubt a private company would want the operating costs of such an aircraft

@QALibrary we were going to use it as a tanker. Operational costs are pretty on par with all the other ex-civilian airliners we converted. Plus the TF34s are great engines.

Yes, it makes sense that Worf would fly a A10...

The jets get replaced because they cost too much money for the value they bring. As jets get older, the cost to keep them in the air goes up, along with the man hours of maintenance. Congress forces the Air Force to maintain these fleets, which means the money and manning that could be going to modern aircraft is tied up keeping aging jets barely air-worthy. There's a reason the FMC rate across all fighters is low, and it's because maintenance squadrons are undermanned for the ops tempo the Air Force demands of their pilots. With maintainers freed up from working old jets, they can be sent to shore up manning in other squadrons which will keep the newer jets flying in a timely fashion. They're reliable workhorses because the owner won't stop pouring money in, refusing to accept that it's time to let go.

LOL...on which dippy reddit did you read that?! Michael Dorn has never owned or flown an A-10. He's flown on VIP rides with the Blue Angles and Thunderbirds in the backseat in a similar way to how Tom Cruise and others were filmed for the Top Gun movies, but the only single seater jet he's owned was an F-86 Saber. He also owned a T-33 Shooting Star at one point but that's a two seater and currently owns a N.A. Sabreliner.

@@DeeEight He did indeed own one for a time and he had his A10 painted blue. It has been years but there were even films done on it. Wish I remembered the name of the show. I think it was around the timeframe he was doing DS9.

I had more fast jet and PGM support, that worked👍

that would work but the country's money wise is a basket case and the running costs of an A-10 are not cheap - but they could use them to try and reopen the Red Sea

John thanks for the support!

They weren't fast enough for the white scarf fighter mafia, whose mantra is, if it can't do BVR air combat we don't want it. Worked on the OV-10 in SEA, perfect air to ground coordinator airplane, with a modicum of small unit ground fire support. As usual, North American always made a good airplane! Last time I saw a Dragonfly was a South Vietnamese A-37 land on a Thai highway, while fleeing Operation Frequent Wind. Problem was there was a creek bridge (with railings) on the road, about a foot narrower than the A-37's wing plus tip tanks. Took them right off, leaving cracks and tears in the wing tips and bag fuel tanks. Thai police wanted it off the road, and the pilot wanted to get to Don Muang in Bangkok, so we hooked a fuel truck, stuffed a ton of rags in the wing tips, filled it while he started it, last we saw was him taking off, and was told he landed in Bangkok, successfully. Oh Well.

Firefighting for the OV-10 and O-2 Many T/A-37 went to 2nd tier allied nations The OV-10 was even used in Syria ... to be replaced by cropdusters

The A-37s retired around 1989/1990. The O/V-10s retired between 1991 and 1992. Quietly they appeared back at SOCOM around 2012/2013. Spoke to a Bronco pilot during an Op at NAS Oceana. The Hornet pilot who we were shadowing had never seen one or heard about him.

The Broncos came back against ISIS. Only for a year, maintenance is too expensive.

@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Yes the pilot we spoke with who was a Flying Staff Sergeant was joking about needing a bake sale for funding. Aside from the NASA OV-10,I hadn't seen one in years. That was back in 2013.

The A-10 can't survive in that airspace if the SU-25 can't.

Dude, titanium cockpits, redundancy systems galore, and great pilots keep the a-10 going..... su-anything can't handle American anything.​@AKlover

I can say that it is unrealistic. We have a lot of other expenses and priority purchases for our army. If we buy anything, it will be either another F35 or F16.

​@@brightlord-ov7cm In Desert Storm, the A-10s had to be pulled out of the daily rotation in just 2 weeks. About 69 had been hit. Two shot down. The fleet was full of holes. It was a disaster.

@donwyoming1936 if it was such a disaster how come we won desert storm in such a short period of time? I'll give you a guess, bunker buster technology came into play.

All composite would solve a lot of the fatigue issues but it wouldn't solve the obsolete design problem of its just not very good in contested airspace. They really picked the wrong aircraft fifty years ago as a thinly veiled bailout of Fairchild. Northrop's YA-9 beat it in the actual A-X competition but Northrop wasn't in danger of collapse. People love to point out the armor this and redundant that, but the RCS is huge and its an easily detected and shot at aircraft from any direction. Its also slow, and has major airspeed limitations when it comes to ferry flights and air to air refueling. The top speed, with 3 external tanks, is 250 ktas. To get the 144 A-10s to Saudi Arabia in 1990, they flew them out a squadron at a time, accompanied by several KC-135s, who's had to do a formation dive from altitutde to connect the boom nozzle properly and refuel the plane TWICE each just to cross the atlantic. It took them about 14 hours for each ferry flight across, in a plane with a shitty autopilot and wearing a diaper. An F-35 can cross with only one refueling with a sophisticated auto-pilot and about 6 hours in the air.

Surely those would have helped with the you guys emu war right?

⁠It's the rabbit war you don't hear about.. Evil creatures. 😂

The retirement has already been delayed. The Air Force wanted the jet gone years ago, but Congress forced them to keep it by refusing to let the Air Force allocate the funding for the fleet somewhere else. The 2024 nation defense budget bill passed, the fleet is not being funded beyond the retirement drawdown.

Why not when the Air Force has much better ways to provide CAS than the A10?

They said buyer not freeloader