Going the way of the Doe Doe Bird

[Pat Carry]

I heard the other day the U2 spyplane and the A-10 will be gone from the inventory of active aircraft very soon. I hope more than few make it to museums before the scrapman gets them. So in the past 5 years or so the F-14 and the C-141 have been retired. What others?

[Elwyn]

The list of planes loaned out by the Air Force museum includes a good number of A-10's. If I counted right it is 44.

[The Inspector]

And the crack brained idea of using the F-35 as a ground attack aircraft! Recall when the morons in the 5 sided Clown College thought ditching the 'HAWG' for AF-16's was making the rounds as 'the next big thing'?

I have a mental image of an F-35 on a low level pass looking more like a landing from a FLASH Gordon cliff hanger, lots of sparks and smoke and dirt flying-or a low angle artillery shell skipping along.

[old iron]

And they will probably throw away the molds so that more A-10s cannot be made when we will need them.

[eze240]

All I'll say is.....well its a mistake..... I don't know about anyone else, but this whole F-35 thing sounds like the same foolishness they did in the 60's with the F-4. You can't make one plane do all the different jobs....at least not if you want to be effective... but hey, it looks good on the budget, right?

[tom d. friedman]

a huge mistake to retire both aircraft. i'm no pentagon bean counter or arm chair general, but the ground attack capability of the hog is unmatched, & retiring it only puts ground forces more at risk. as to the u-2, it may be dated compared to spy satellites, but when in need of intelligence asap these days the u.s. doesn't always have the luxury to wait for a satellite to float over the trouble spot, & drones are just to vulnerable. dropping the u-2 now when the sr-71 has long been retired & brought back only to be retired again after it was needed again re -inforces my point. talk about ass backward thinking from the pentagon pointy heads!!

[old iron]

But isn't there a U-2/SR-71 replacement in the black budget? I am curious to hear what might be actually known about this.

[John Dupre]

I think retiring the U-2 is a good indication that there is something out there to fulfill its mission. The A-10 retirement is only to send the money into the gaping pit that it the F-35. It is possible to have a good multi role aircraft i.e. the F-4, provided you are willing to accept that the aircraft cannot do any one job really well when opposed by an opponent aircraft dedicated to one mission. Of course training and tactics can make up for a lack of performance and it da***d well better. A different worry is the contracting of the combat aircraft manufacturing base. We have what THREE combat airframe manufacturers now? You would think that rather than putting all the eggs in two or three baskets the Defense Department would want to spread the love to as many shops as possible. I suppose that ship has already sailed but you might be able to reconstitute one of the lost builders or maybe get a BizJet maker to expand into combat aircraft if only the opportunity was there. I think that our military needs to have the capabilities to fight two major campaigns in widely separate areas of the world at all times using everything from animal power to satellites. Don't see how that is going to be possible going forward or is it backward to 1940 levels.

[The Inspector]

The 'farts and darts' crowd in the blue suits community NEVER wanted or liked the 'Hawg'. It didn't cost zillions to design and build, it didn't need years/decades to iron out issues on, used 'old fashioned' steam gages to fly not 'geewhizzo' screens, and most importantly it didn't make a big smoke trail and expensive and an impressive BANG!!!! when it went off. At one time, by multi sourcing GAU-8 rounds, the DoD got the per round cost down to under $25 per round, someone found out and it's back to single source 'pay whatever they ask' prices.

They pushed very hard to get them all to Air Guard units and then to the grinder, it's too bad that the pesky Gulf War 1 got in the way and the airplane and it's pilots got to show their stuff on worldwide TV, suddenly their carefully crafted plans to make the F-16 into an AF-16 ground attack aircraft went bye-bye.

Years ago the Army at Aberdeen P.G. developed a wire guided suitcase missile for battlefield use, it was named 'Copperhead' and used a small video camera to 'see' it's targets (tanks, helos, facilities, etc.) and could operate 'over a hill' it took about 30 minutes to teach any Sp4 who could fog a mirror how to use it and it was deadon accurate and lethal especially to armor. It, unfortunately was also dirt cheap to make and didn't make the required loud flash and noise when it went off-it got cancelled, this was around the time they were sinking billions into DIVAD which made all the requisite noises and flashes at huge expense until it was found out the 'shootdowns' were all rigged.

Retiring most (but not all) the Dragon Ladies makes sense since missions now run 14-16+ hours which is an excessive amount of time to sit on a block in a rubber bag and not be able to move, some pilots need to lifed out of the cockpit afterwards.

So we're back to bending over the desk and taking it dry on the 'never amount to anything' F-35.

[gale_dono]

The A-10 wasn't produced rivet by rivet in every single induvidual congressional district, so of course it had to go. Also, it's not jet-fighter sexy or stealthy, the two things that make the pentagon gremlins smile.

[Kyleb]

We have what THREE combat airframe manufacturers now? You would think that rather than putting all the eggs in two or three baskets the Defense Department would want to spread the love to as many shops as possible.

They do. Engines here, avionics there, wings somewhere else, fuselage and tail built somewhere else. Add in all of the other stuff and assemblies and parts are coming from everywhere. Costs a fortune to organize and manage, but hey, since the program has suppliers in virtually every state, it gets congressional votes in virtually every state and that trumps running a cost effective program.

Eisenhower was right that the military/industrial complex would eventually subvert the political process.

[The Inspector]

The A-10 wasn't produced rivet by rivet in every single induvidual congressional district, so of course it had to go. Also, it's not jet-fighter sexy or stealthy, the two things that make the pentagon gremlins smile.

I think that's pretty much what I just said-

[JohnB]

The CSUSAF McPeak wanted to scrap the A-10s in the 80s. There were even plans to pull them from Europe by the early 90s, Bentwaters was supposed to get F-15Es.
The end of the cold war and Desert Storm ended those plans.
I'm surprised they've lasted this long.

[Enemy Ace]

the A-10's have been rewinged recently and have had SLEP and avionics (glass cockpit) mods done including the sexy look and shoot off boresight helmets (A-10C). They are all weather and will be good low intensity aircraft for years to come. Retiring them would be a criminally stupid move.
The U-2's have long since been converted to passive intelligence gathering platforms. those that think they just carry a big nikon camera have no idea. They are now valuable ISR (look it up) assets that can do super cool intel gathering missions like listen to cell phones and intercept wireless data.
The F-35 is bankrupting the military, nobody has the balls to rein this monster in now since so much money has been poured into this pit. That's assuming that it really can do all the awesome things they say. At some point we have to realize that we can't fight even another vietnam style engagement with what we have. In vietnam we lost a dozen or more helicopters and planes a day, now when we lose 1 helicopter it's a newsworthy event. What are we going to do when we have to fight a real enemy? we simply can't afford it with the way our military is going currently.....
just my .02 as I see it (from very close quarters)

[davidwomacks]

Its like those in charge have never read a history book. They tried making a fighter the F-4 into a close air support bomber during Vietnam which failed and spawned the devolvement of the A-10. Hitler tried to use the ME-262 as a bomber and it failed as well. Another example of our leaders ineptness is the funneling of money to Syrian rebels we tired that in Afghanistan and it spawned the Taliban and Al Quieda now we do it again.... I think the problem is so many of our political leaders have never been in the military and then they try to make military desions with no military experience.