The Air Force has reversed its plan to retire the A-10 and now says all 283 Warthogs have a productive future. The 2018 budget plan sent to Congress this week says the iconic close support aircraft will be in the fleet “for the foreseeable future,” according to The Associated Press. All the A-10s were supposed to be parked in the desert by now as the Air Force prepared to deploy the F-35 to replace it and almost every other aircraft in the inventory. Warthog fans in the Air Force and in government have kept them flying for the last six years and now the immediate future of the 1970s-era aircraft appears secure.
Among the champions of the A-10 were Arizona Republicans Sen. John McCain and Rep. Martha McSally, who have political reasons for their stance since some are based at Davis-Monthan in their home state. But McSally is a former Warthog pilot who caught the ear of Commander-In-Chief Donald Trump with a succinct description that might have appealed to the action-oriented President. “The A-10 is this badass airplane with a big gun on it,” she is quoted as telling Trump. A-10s are in combat in Syria with the “big gun,” a seven-barrel Gatling gun whose distinctive ripping sound is unwelcome to any opposing ground force.
