The Air Force is awarding Boeing nearly $240 Million to complete a program to re-wing the venerable fleet of A-10 ground attack aircraft. Better known as the Warthog, the low, slow, and very effective aircraft was introduced in the late 1970s and has fought in almost every combat zone since.
The Air Force had planned to replace the purpose-built ground-attack A-10 with the F-35A multi-role fighter. But the fleet of F-35’s has not yet grown to the numbers of aircraft to effectively assume a commanding role in the close air support. Also, the operational cost per hour of the F-35 is more than twice that of the A-10.
The program will produce enough sets of wings to refit the current inventory of aircraft and have several spare sets in reserve. The new wings will extend the operational lives of each aircraft about 10,000 hours. The cost of renewing each aircraft is approximately $8.8 million, cheap compared to the production cost of the F-35A.