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).