"I have A-10s and I will use them, because they're fantastic airplanes.

"Their guys are incredibly well-trained and they do fantastic work in support of the joint

warfight.

There's a lot of love out there for this tough old bird.

The Thunderbolt II's story starts with America's experience in Vietnam.

When the last of more than 700 A-10s was built in 1984, the aircrews and maintainers who

worked on this lumbering plane thought it was so ugly they called it the "Warthog."

Today, after decades of wear and tear and blood and toil, that nickname carries with

it a nickname of affection and respect, even if there are still Warthog haters who can't

wait for it to retire.

In later years, people would say the A-10 was a plane designed around a gun—its 30

mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon, to be specific.

But the design logic dictating its configuration goes well beyond that mean machine gun in

its nose.

"At the time, the Air Force's "high-tech" fighter faction—which included most of Usaf

leadership—considered the twin-engined, straight-wing attack airplane an anachronistic

dud, unfit to operate in the modern battlefield where it was supposed to kill Russian tanks.

How the A-10 program survived its first few years is a complicated story.

Former A-10 pilot contends that the Thunderbolt II made it to production by prevailing in

two key political battles.

In January of this year, Major General James Post, Vice Commander of Air Combat Command,

reportedly told junior officers that passing favorable information about the A-10 to Congress

was tantamount to "committing treason."

More recently, F-35 program chief Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan dismissed a potential close-air

support fly-off test between the A-10 and F-35 as unnecessary.

Since 2012, the Air Force has argued that it cannot afford the A-10, and that the trusty

old hog must be retired in part to pay for acquisition of the F-35, which will assume

its close air support mission among all the other things the Joint Strike Fighter is supposed

to do.

Critics and the A-10's Congressional supporters have sternly challenged the notion, leading

to a tense pitched battle.

How little things change.

Forty years later, some Air Force leaders still see the A-10 as too rudimentary for

the battlefield of the future,

preferring in this case the supposedly do-it-all F-35.

The Air Force will eventually replace the A-10 with the F-35 in the close air support

role.

By the early 2000s, no one could argue about the A-10's effectiveness.

And in the decades since the first production A-10A was delivered to Davis-Monthan Air Force

Base in October 1975, the simple aircraft has gotten smarter.

The A-10 received upgrades including an early laser receiver pod and the latest Litening

targeting pods.

The inertial navigation system added in 1980 was replaced by GPS in the late 1990s.

Analog gauges were replaced by multi-function displays.

In 2005, the entire A-10 fleet began receiving Precision Engagement upgrades including an

improved fire control system and electronic countermeasures.

These improvements mean the Warthog can deliver smart bombs.

A moving map display, hands-on throttle and stick, situational awareness data link, GPS-guided

weapons, and upgraded DC power have changed the way the aircraft is flown.

Today, most A-10 operations are flown at medium to high altitudes, but the "Hawgs" still go

low when needed, On the deck, pilots say the airplane is rock steady, Despite all the advanced

gear, much of the low-level flying and attacking is still done using the old-fashioned eyeball,

with A-10 drivers performing the same pop-up, roll over, and dive maneuver they did in the

1970s.

The plane carries 10,000 pounds of internal fuel near the wing roots.

Those General Electric TF-34-GE-100 engines produce 9000 pounds of thrust each.

Their position not only protects them from being damaged by foreign objects flying up

from unprepared runways, but also directs their exhaust over the tailplane, helping

to shield them from detection by infrared surface-to-air missiles.

The A-10's cockpit and portions of its flight control system are protected by 1,200 pounds

of titanium aircraft armor, called the "bathtub."

The bathtub can withstand direct hits from armor-piercing projectiles up 23 mm.

The front windscreen and canopy are resistant to small arms fire.

As usual, the Warthog isn't popular until it's needed.

Do you agree that the A-10 Warthog will be replaced with the F-35 Lightning II fighter

jet ??

Leave your comment below.

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