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BRRRRRT: Congress wants the Air Force to keep the A-10 aircraft that troops totally love
http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/congress-air-force-a-10After months of impassioned pleas from troops on the ground, hand-wringing from Air Force leadership, and a blur of questions from Congress about the Air Forces plans for the future, lawmakers have decided enough is enough: the A-10 Thunderbolt II will stay in the USAF arsenal.
BRRRRRT: Congress wants the Air Force to keep the A-10 aircraft that troops totally love
Blake Stilwell
On Monday, The House Armed Services Committee released its $612 billion Fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, which contains a provision called Prohibition on Availability of Funds for Retirement of A-10 Aircraft, which obliges the Secretary of the Air Force to:
commission an appropriate entity outside the Department of Defense to conduct an assessment of the required capabilities or mission platform to replace the A-10 aircraft.
This means the Air Forces can no longer ignore Congressional concerns about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and how it can fill the A-10s close-air support (CAS) role. The provision in the new defense budget means the Air Force will have to actually hire an independent researcher from outside of DoD and acquire hard data on how to replace the A-10, instead of just asserting everything is fine and forcing Airmen to say nice things about the $1.5 trillion F-35.
In the meantime, the Air Force must maintain a mission-capable 171 A-10s and Congress provides $467 million for it in the 2016 bill.
The John Q. Public blog, run by retired Air Force officer Tony Carr, went through the ten paragraphs of the Congressional directive in detail, where Congress list the ways the A-10 bests the F-35 (without mentioning the F-35), directing the Air Force to study and answer for things like the ability to remain within visual range of friendly forces and targets to facilitate responsiveness to ground forces and minimize re-attack times the ability to operate beneath low cloud ceilings, at low speeds, and within the range of typical air defenses found in enemy maneuver units the ability to deliver multiple lethal firing passes and sustain long loiter endurance to support friendly forces throughout extended ground engagements.
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BRRRRRT: Congress wants the Air Force to keep the A-10 aircraft that troops totally love (Original Post)
unhappycamper
Oct 2015
OP
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)1. That is good news.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)2. Excellent!
An aircraft that actually has some real application in the world.
valerief
(53,235 posts)3. $612 BILLION. What a waste. Only war profiteers get this money. nt
ladjf
(17,320 posts)4. The A10 is the perfect weapon against ISIS. Too bad the AF is trying
to retire it. nt