USAF to Make Recommendation on A-10 Replacement in Fall

The US Air Force is deliberating if and how to replace its close-air support workhorse, the A-10, and may have a better picture of their path forward later this year, the service’s top civilian said Wednesday.

During an interview with Defense News, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said she and other top service leaders — such as Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein — will be briefed on various options for replacing or augmenting the A-10 Warthog this fall, as the service begins to build its next five-year budget plan.

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The USAF Air Combat Chief is NOT thrilled with the idea of an aircraft meant for permissive airspace only.

US Air Force Interested in two Aircraft for Replacing the A-10

The US Air Force is considering two new procurements to boost their close air support mission, including an off-the-shelf option for permissive environments and a cheap, clean sheet design aircraft that would replace the Fairchild Dornier A-10.

In a recent briefing, air force officials laid out their plan for the light-attack OA-X and the A-X2, a short-term replacement for the A-10. The service is looking at an initial order of about 20 aircraft for the OA-X mission a early as next year, with serious procurement launching in Fiscal 2018, Dan Goure, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, tells FlightGlobal. To meet that rapid need, the service is examining two fully developed aircraft, Beechcraft’s AT-6 and Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano, and are planning a “fly off” for this fall.

The air force has excluded Textron AirLand’s Scorpion, a dual light attack fighter and trainer aircraft still in its development phase, as an option for OA-X.

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The funding is not certain and the USAF Sec is wary.  She's not been briefed.

USAF Considering Expanding T-X Role to A-10 Replacement, Aggressor

The US Air Force is considering expanding the scope of its T-X trainer requirement to include the role of an aggressor aircraft or potentially as a replacement for its Fairchild Dornier A-10 Warthogs.

Although the service is yet to issue a formal request for proposals on T-X, USAF officials have expressed interest in using the aircraft to fulfill the close air support mission of the A-10 replacement, also known as AT-X, said Dan Darnell, vice-president of strategic initiatives at Raytheon, speaking at the show on Tuesday.

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Arguing Over the A-10's Role of Close air Support

Last year, at the height of the F-35/A-10 close air support (CAS) debate, Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Mark A. Welsh III stated that the Air Force averaged 20,000 CAS sorties a year in Afghanistan. But was it really CAS? Within the fighter/attack community, the narrative of seasoned aviators who’ve “been there, done that” tout that airpower did not really perform CAS at all. Instead, they argue it featured glimmers of CAS sprinkled on what was actually ground-directed dynamic targeting. Not only are they right, but the distinction is even more important, as it biases and bounds the air support dialogue of the A-10, its potential successors (A-X2 and/or OA-X), and even the F-35. Air support in Afghanistan worked, but it is a mistake to think it was all CAS.

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The (eventual) retirement of the A-10 Warthog has been a challenging issue for the Air Force. The original plan to replace the A-10 entirely with F-35 has fallen by the wayside, buttressed by the reality that the extended combat deployments undergone by the fighter/attack force were never envisioned when the F-35 plan was hatched. Twenty-five years of continuous conflict, most of it irregular in nature, has highlighted the utility of a relatively slow, heavily armed multirole aircraft. Our operations over the past decades have been largely very similar to the kind of counterinsurgency demands that led to the requirement for a new attack aircraft (then called A-X) in 1966.

As the Air Force has moved toward the position that a replacement attack aircraft (A-X2 or OA-X) is necessary, one persistent issue continues to arise: What kind of aircraft might be able to do “high threat” CAS? In a presumed environment where the air defenses are too lethal for the A-10 to survive, wouldn’t the F-35 be a better alternative? The question itself is highlights a persistent trend in Air Force concept development — a mythical set of conditions that is highly unlikely, fundamentally not credible, based on a misunderstanding of the air threat, or, in this case, all three. There is no reasonable case to be made for an aircraft that can survive in a high-threat CAS environment, because there is no credible case to be made that any aircraft can survive in such an environment. It isn’t that there isn’t a need to apply airpower in such an environment. Rather, it is that having a need doesn’t equate with delivering a capability. The idea that the Air Force can deliver effective CAS in a highly contested environment is a myth, one that the Air Force would be well served to get rid of.

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USAF Wants UCAV to Replace its A-10, but Can't Afford it

The Air Force wants to replace the aging but beloved A-10 “Warthog” with a robotic “flying coke machine” that loiters over the battlefield, dispensing firepower at the touch of a button, the outgoing Chief of Staff said this morning. (More on that concept below). Gen. Mark Welsh also wants a “sixth-generation fighter” that can defeat the most advanced air defenses. But he can’t afford either.

As the service downsizes, both dollars and skilled people are in too short supply, Welsh said. The force has its hands full fielding the new “fifth generation” F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and keeping all its aging fourth-generation (and older) planes in the air.

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US Air Force Moving Forward with A-10 Replacement

The Air Force is moving forward with a key step in developing a dedicated close-air support plane to replace the A-10 Warthog, a top general said Thursday.

“My requirements guys are in the process of building a draft requirements document for a follow-on CAS airplane,” Lt. Gen. Mike Holmes, the deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, said. “It’s interesting work that at some point we’ll be able to talk with you a little bit more.”

Defining the requirement is the first concrete step toward developing potentially developing a replacement A-10 for the close-air support mission, often dubbed A-X. The Air Force has been studying the idea of a procuring single-role A-X for at least a year now, hosting a joint-service summit in March, 2015, to work out options for the close-air support, or CAS, mission.

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US Air Force Admites F-35 too Expensive for A-10 Role, Considering Options Including Using T-X Deriv

The US Air Force has begun studying future close air support (CAS) aircraft to succeed the Fairchild Republic A-10 as the Pentagon evaluates the weaponry it needs for “prolonged operations” of one year or more.

The flying branch is looking at tactical air support platform alternatives for low-intensity “permissive conflict” like counterterrorism and regional stability operations, similar to the types of missions being conducted Iraq and Afghanistan today, where air superiority has been achieved and coalition aircraft can roam relatively freely in support of ground troops.

USAF officials say a portion of a "combat air force study” is dedicated to considering alternative CAS aircraft: everything from the Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverine, Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, and the Textron AirLand Scorpion on the “low end” of the capability spectrum to more sophisticated clean-sheet attack aircraft or AT-X derivatives of the planned T-X next-generation trainer.

The study comes as the air force “re-phases” its retirement of the hardy A-10 "Warthog" that currently serves in the role. It has pushed back the fleet’s divestiture from this fiscal year to “between 2018 and 2022” at cost imposition of $3.4 billion.

Service officials admit that despite being an ideal close air support platform in high-end conflict with Russia, the long-delayed A-10 replacement, the Lockheed Martin F-35, will be too expensive to operate in the Warthog’s day-to-day role.

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DARPA Completes Persistent Close Air Support Testing

PCAS is a package of technologies designed to speed close air support to soldiers on the battlefield, enabling ground troops, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) and combat aircrews to share real-time situational awareness and weapons systems data. Executed in three phases, the four-and-a-half year program included flight testing during the first six months of 2015.

"The PCAS program was able to reduce close air support response times from nearly one hour to less than six minutes," said Tom Bussing, Raytheon vice president of Advanced Missile Systems. "By speeding critical information to decision makers, PCAS could save lives in the battlespace."

During the U.S. Marine Corps' Talon Reach V exercise in March, the program demonstrated end-to-end, fully digital weapons release of a Griffin missile from a modified MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. In May, an A-10C Thunderbolt II attack aircraft and a joint terminal attack controller (JTAC) on the ground, both using PCAS' real-time digital communications and situational awareness capabilities, successfully employed 10 GPS- and laser-guided weapons in a second series of flight tests.

The PCAS system is designed to be platform-, digital radio-, sensor-, and weapons-class agnostic, and to be portable from platform to platform. The two main parts of the system are PCAS-Air, which consists of smart launcher electronics and a pilot tablet, and PCAS-Ground, which comprises the equipment used by the JTAC.

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DARPA Successfully Tests A-10 Close Air Support Strike Called in by Android Tablet

With a few taps on a specially configured Android tablet, a joint terminal attack controller called in an airstrike from an A-10 gunship, the Pentagon’s research arm announced.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as Darpa, for the first time tested the so-called Persistent Close Air Support, or PCAS, technology on an A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft from April through June near Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, the agency announced this week in a press release.

The evaluations “showed that a warfighter serving as a joint terminal attack controller (JTAC) on the ground could, in seamless coordination with a pilot, successfully command an airstrike with as few as three clicks on a tablet,” the release states.

The program aims to develop easier, faster and more precise coordination between ground forces and air crews while conducting strikes against nearby targets, according to Darpa. The goal is to use smaller munitions to hit multiple or moving targets to minimize the incidence of friendly fire and collateral damage, according to the agency.

“We have shown that a flexible architecture and extensible technology toolsets are key to making groundbreaking improvements in air-ground coordination,” Dan Patt, DARPA program manager, said in the release.

The prototype system involves two components: PCAS-Ground software, called the Android Tactical Assault Kit; and PCAS-Air, an automated targeting system on board the aircraft to determine the timed release of laser– and GPS-guided munitions, according to the release.

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US Air Force Wants A-10 Replacement, has no Money for it

The Air Force wants a less costly next-generation aircraft for close air support to replace the A-10, but there is no funding available for it and there likely will not be in the future, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said Wednesday .

Given a better budget environment, the service would want a new aircraft that could primarily focus on providing close support for ground troops, carry a lot of ordnance and do so more cheaply than other aircraft in the service's fleet, Welsh said. But it is not a realistic proposal today, he said.

"We need a low-threat CAS platform in the near future, if the money will allow it," Welsh said at an event sponsored by Defense One in Washington, D.C. "It doesn't today, but we would certainly like to have something like that, that operates more efficiently than what we have today, that carries more firepower and does so in a low-threat environment."

This is the mission of the A-10, which the Air Force is targeting again for retirement. The service has said it would like to keep the aircraft around for the end of its planned service life, which is until about 2030. However, it does not have enough money to support the aircraft and its infrastructure. Other aircraft for now can pick up the slack in the mission of close air support until the F-35 comes on line.

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hmm.  How about we transfer the A-10s to the Ukrainian Air Force and outsource our CAS needs until we have a replacement.  After all, I am sure the Ukrainians will quickly have lots of experience using them.  They'd love them some белемніт/бородавочник to go rooting through the Donbass.  Then again maybe maybe we need to put together a літати козак unit modeled on the 飞虎队.

Baiting and joking aisde, the best course is to take DARPA's PCAS to the next step and make the A-10 into the QA-10 (image source).

US Air Force may be Open to Developing Follow-on the A-10

The Air Force, under heavy pressure from Congress to keep the A-10 Warthog in the air, will hold a mini-summit with the Army, Navy and Marines to figure out the best ways to do Close Air Support, the politically sensitive mission of aircraft protecting troops on the ground.

Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, told reporters here at the Air Force Association’s annual winter conference that the service would be looking at all manner of ways to kill enemy troops shooting at American and allied troops. Carlisle said the service would consider buying a new weapon to do CAS.

“What does the Army think? What do the Marines think? We are looking at all of that,” he said. “Another weapons program may be what we need to consider.”

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Oy, Something More? F-35 Can't Fire its Gun Until 2019

America’s $400 billion Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35, is slated to join fighter squadrons next year—but missing software will render its 25mm cannon useless.

The Pentagon’s newest stealth jet, the nearly $400 billion Joint Strike Fighter, won’t be able to fire its gun during operational missions until 2019, three to four years after it becomes operational.

Even though the Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35, is supposed to join frontline U.S. Marine Corps fighter squadrons next year and Air Force units in 2016, the jet’s software does not yet have the ability to shoot its 25mm cannon. But even when the jet will be able to shoot its gun, the F-35 barely carries enough ammunition to make the weapon useful.

The JSF won’t be completely unarmed. It will still carry a pair of Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAM long-range air-to-air missiles and a pair of bombs. Initially, it will be able to carry 1,000-pound satellite-guided bombs or 500-pound laser-guided weapons. But those weapons are of limited utility, especially during close-in fights.

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Defense tech has a good follow-up given the politics of pushing to retire the A-10.

New Pentagon Budget Adds Aircraft, Ships

Military aviation officials and defense contractors will have a merry Christmas if the $1.1 trillion fiscal year 2015 budget is approved as agreed upon on 10 December passes both houses of the US Congress.

The Department of Defense netted $93.8 billion in procurement funding, of which $31.9 billion is slated for aircraft purchases by the air force, army and navy.

Congress authorised the purchase of a total 38 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs, nine more than were bought in fiscal year 2014 and four more than the Obama administration requested. The order funds two additional F-35As for the air force at $224 million and two F-35Cs for the navy at $255 million.

The navy also will receive authorisation to purchase 15 Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft for $1.46 billion. Those aircraft were not included in the navy’s 2015 budget request, but the service included atop its list of unfunded priorities. Twelve EA-18Gs were added into a bill passed by the House that died without a vote on the Senate floor.

Though it rewards the navy, the bill denies the air force authority to retire its Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolts by funding the fleet’s maintenance at $337.1 million. The plan, pitched as a cost-saving measure by a cash-strapped air force, met with strenuous opposition on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have been promising to preserve the A-10.

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Additionally, The Ohio SSBN Replacement was also fully funded and a new LPD-17 San Antonio Class Amphib was also paid for.  UCLASS naval UCAV  was fully funded (with some restrictions) and the Long Range Strike Bomber was also fully funded.

US Air Force Deploying A-10s to Fight Islamic State

US Air Force (USAF) Fairchild A-10C Thunderbolt II ground attacks jets have arrived in Kuwait to begin flying strike missions against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria as part of Operation 'Inherent Resolve'.

The USAF public affairs office in Kuwait announced the deployment of the A-10C squadron on 24 November, saying the: "unit will work with coalition forces to support Operation 'Inherent Resolve' and other regional operations".

The USAF had already announced on 17 December that several A-10s from the 163rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron had been deployed to an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia to support the reactivated 332nd Air Expeditionary Group. It released photographs showing six A-10s at a base that can be identified as Kuwait's Ahmed al-Jabr Air Base.

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DARPA's Persistent Close Air Support (PCAS) System Begins Flight Testing

Raytheon has started flight tests of the persistent close air support (PCAS) system, the third phase of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) effort to provide ground troops with faster, more accurate close air support.

Raytheon plans to install the PCAS system on a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt to test air performance and connectivity with ground-based joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) equipped with a PCAS ground unit.

"PCAS will help reduce close air support response times from as long as one hour to just six minutes," Tom Bussing, Raytheon vice president of Advanced Missile Systems, says in a prepared statement. "By delivering critical information to decision makers more quickly, PCAS will save lives."

Raytheon serves as systems integrator for the programme, and is working with partners Rockwell Collins, General Electric, BAE Systems and 5-D Systems. It won the $25 million, 18-month phase-3 contract in February. The entire three-year DARPA programme is funded at $82 million, according to DARPA.

The first phase involved identifying relevant technologies, demonstrating concepts and development of target-identification systems. The system’s design and ground system were finalized in phase 2, and it was cleared for installation on multiple aircraft at minimal cost.

PCAS will enable ground troops, joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) and combat aircrews to share real-time situational awareness and weapons systems data, Raytheon says. The system allows for fast identification of multiple targets at once, which gives JTACs the opportunity to carefully choose appropriate precision guided weapons to reduce the risk of collateral damage and friendly fire. Currently the mission is completed using paper maps and verbal communications between ground troops in enemy contact and pilots flying in to support them.

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This was originally intended to be a drone based system making A-10s into UCAVs and adding the capabilities above.  The first round has been rescaled to just testing the above on existing A-10s.  

Defense Spending Bill Bars USAF From Dumping A-10

The bipartisan defense budget that passed through the House Thursday includes strict language mandating the Air Force not execute any plans to retire the A-10 Warthog. The legislation specifically blocks the Air Force from spending any money to divest A-10s through calendar year 2014.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh has said the service needs to retired older, single mission aircraft like the A-10 in order to reserve funding for newer aircraft like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is slotted to take over the A-10’s close air support role.

In service since the 70’s, the twin-engine jet aircraft is designed to provide ground troops with close air support by using its armored fuselage for protection, flying low to the ground to track and hit enemies and firing deadly 30mm rotary cannons.

Lawmakers have pushed back against any talk of the A-10’s retirement. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., blocked the nomination of the Air Force secretary, citing her concerns about Air Force’s A-10 plans and Defense Department struggles to bring the Joint Strike Fighter online.

Air Force has not formally made a decision about whether to retire the aircraft. However, Lt. Gen. Charles Davis, Military Deputy for Air Force Acquisition, made clear that budget restrictions have forced the service to consider cutting entire programs to save money.

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Planning A-10 Warthog Version 2.0

What would a next-generation replacement for the legendary attack jet look like?

Short on cash and determined to prioritize new stealth warplanes, the U.S. Air Force is busily trying to rid itself of all 350 of its slow- and low-flying A-10 Warthog attack planes—this despite the heavily-armed twin-engine jet’s impressive combat record stretching back to the 1991 Gulf War.

But the flying branch still needs to support American troops on the ground—the Warthog’s raison d’etre. With that in mind, around 20 highly experienced A-10 pilots and engineers are working on unofficial specifications for a successor to the Warthog.

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