WASHINGTON \u2014 A-10 Warthog fans can breathe a sigh of relief: The Air Force won’t start retiring the famed close-air support plane until 2021, at the very earliest.
Over the next couple of years, Goldfein said he\u2019d like to see the dialogue about the close-air support mission (CAS) move from a “platform-centric” discussion about whether to sustain the A-10 to a “family of systems” approach that recognizes that many aircraft support ground forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That starts with an understanding of how we do the business today of close-air support, because the reality is it\u2019s changed significantly, and it will change significantly in the future if we get this right, because this is something we\u2019ve got to continue to think about,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Central Command\u2019s air component commander in 2011, Goldfein said he employed a number of different aircraft for the CAS mission in Afghanistan depending on the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the mountainous terrain of eastern Afghanistan, unmanned MQ-9 Reapers were often dispatched, he said. The open fields of southern Afghanistan were optimized for A-10s, while B-1 bombers \u2014 with their endurance and large munitions suite \u2014 were a good fit for northern Afghanistan. F-16s played a larger role in the western portion of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If I had gone to those ground force commanders and said, \u2018Hey, I\u2019ve swapped out B-1s for A-10s or F-16s,’ he would have rightly looked at me and said, \u2018Why? They can\u2019t get there fast enough and they don\u2019t have enough gas,\u2019” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the service has not decided whether it will eventually pursue a new, purpose-built CAS plane \u2014 an A-X2, as it has been called inside the Pentagon \u2014 Goldfein reiterated his intent to conduct a demonstration of off-the-shelf light attack aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Air Force first floated the idea of buying these “OA-X” light attack aircraft last year, which would help supplement the A-10 and other assets conducting low-end missions in the Middle East. The newest unfunded priorities list submitted by the service includes $8 million to support an experiment that would allow aircraft manufacturers to show off potential offerings, but the effort has not been funded yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Goldfein said the experiment would give the Air Force a glimpse into what is available on the market, possibly paving the way for a program of record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Show me what you got that’s off the shelf, that’s shovel-ready, that can contribute right now without research-and-development dollars, that we can get into the fight right now,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arizona Republican John McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, has supported a purchase of 300 OA-X aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A-10 fans can breathe a sigh of relief: The Air Force says it has abandoned plans to retire the plane next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":83689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":67,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[16,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3305],"class_list":["post-45774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-air-force"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"X4UCVHJHR5FRVGEFLONH5N3LUA","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2017\/02\/07\/the-famed-warthog-will-stick-around-until-at-least-2021\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n