Last week, various news outlets regurgitated Rep. Martha McSally’s press release announcing her performance in a House Armed Services Committee hearing in which she questioned Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson on the A-10. McSally celebrated “first time that any Air Force Secretary has gone on the record publicly to support keeping the A-10 fleet operational into the 2030’s.”
McSally also claimed that she “has continued to fight to modernize the fleet by ensuring that Congress provides funds to re-wing the remaining A-10’s that need new wings in order to keep the entire fleet in the air and in the fight through 2030 and beyond.
The Tucson Sentinel reported:
While some military brass have pushed to end the A-10 program in favor of the F-35, the attack jets — some of which are based in Tucson — should be flying through at least 2030, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said Tuesday.
While the Pentagon has invested millions in re-winging the aircraft, plans have called for the A-10s to be phased out. While Wilson didn’t commit to keep the entire fleet of Warthogs flying for more than a decade, she told U.S. Rep. Martha McSally that the service expects the planes to “continue flying at least until 2030.”
In 2016, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the Obama administration had dialed back Pentagon plans to draw down the A-10 for at least several years, saying that A-10s would be active through at least 2022.
The planes, including those based in Tucson, had been on a path to an earlier retirement in favor of the F-35, with some already grounded. The Air Force then had 326 of the planes, operating out of five bases across the United States, including a large presence at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where 83 of the jets were based.
Tuesday, McSally said during a congressional hearing that, “Two years ago, we sat in a similar hearing with previous Air Force leadership arguing strongly about the need to keep the A-10 Warthog. We won. Since then, the A-10 has been pivotal ‘schwacking’ ISIS, deployed to the European defense, been ready south of the DMZ, and have now been sent back to Afghanistan.
“There’ve been some reports that divestment will still commence in a few years, and other public statements saying it will fly well into the 2030s and beyond. So can you state for the record how long you plan to have the A-10 in the inventory?,” the Southern Arizona congresswoman, herself a former A-10 pilot and critic of the F-35 program, asked Wilson.
The Trump administration official didn’t specify how many squadrons of planes would be kept active, but told McSally that the Air Force expects the A-10 to “continue flying at least until 2030,” according to a press release.
The Republican representative’s office noted in a press release that Wilson’s statement was the “first time that any Air Force Secretary has gone on the record publicly to support keeping the A-10 fleet operational into the 2030s.”
Contrary to reports, the A-10 is effectively being phased out due to the lack of effort by McSally and Sen. John McCain.
“McSally’s victory march is misleading,” one Capitol Hill insider told the ADI. “The newly released budget provides funding for the rewinging of only three planes. While three sets of wings; installed 3 years from now, is better than nothing, it certainly is not a reason to celebrate.”
The truth McSally is keeping from the public is the fact that she has lost 110 aircraft in the fleet. Secretary Wilson has no choice but to park these aircraft due to a lack of a long term wing replacement contract. According to the A-10 System Program Office based at Hill AFB UT, A-10s will start being grounded due to wings in FY19. These facts, by any measure, do not equal a victory.
Before their defeat in 2016, Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Rep. Ron Barber were the driving force behind the Warthog’s survival. Capitol Hill insiders say McSally had to be dragged into the fight, and once involved, did little but the sort of grandstanding she displayed at last week’s hearing.
As a result of that failure, it will take over three years for the wings to be installed.
A-10 pilots also report parts shortages have affected every facet of the aircraft, even gun employment. Only deployed units get sufficient GAU-8/A gun parts, all other units are restricted on the number of bullets they can train with due to these parts shortages.
For his part, since talking ill, McCain has been AWOL on the A-10. At the same time, his staff has ensured that the light attack fighter McCain covets is nearly fully funded. A whopping $6 billion is allocated to McCain’s pet program. Insiders note that it will now be easier for the F-35 proponents to defend it as Close Air Support platform in comparison to the light attack aircraft. Compared to the A-10, both platforms fail miserably. However the F-35 comparison to the light attack aircraft is all A-10 haters need when McSally and McCain provide so little backup.
Due to the efforts by the USAF to destroy the A-10 and McSally’s less-than-stellar effort to save it, the USAF will start grounding the plane in FY2019, and 55 of the aircraft will be grounded by 2023.