A-10 Upgrades Double Operational Lifespan

[2RHPZ]

A-10 Upgrades Double Operational Lifespan

(US Air Force; June 30, 2004)

DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --- The first production A-10 Thunderbolt II was delivered here in October 1975. Fifteen years later, the A-10 was called the most formidable weapon system of its type while flying combat missions during Operation Desert Storm.

Today, more than 30 years after beginning service, many of the Air Force’s A-10s are reaching the end of their predicted 8,000-hour service life.

Because there is no replacement for the A-10, aircraft technicians working on a service-life extension program at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center here are trying to double the aircraft’s operational lifespan.

Although the aircraft are undergoing countless upgrades, center specialists are discovering new ways to enhance aircraft repairs and encountering unexpected problems along the way.

Recently, mechanics discovered a crack in one of the mounts that connect the center assembly to the outboard wing. The crack was hardly noticeable to the naked eye.

“There had never been any inspection criteria established because this was an unpredictable problem,” said Sam Smith, A-10 wing production branch chief.

The mount was designed to prevent landing-related stress from transferring to the wing. It did the job, but not knowing how much more stress a cracked mount could take was a major concern to the A-10 team.

“There is no way to really know if a cracked (mount) could lead to failure in the aircraft, but our job is to make sure every A-10 is returned to the warfighters in perfect condition,” Mr. Smith said. “Every A-10 wing in the inventory is now inspected for cracks in the (mount). As a result of this unexpected finding a special team of technicians (here) has developed inspection and repair procedures to address the problem.”

Even with the new technology and procedures used to replace the wing mounts, each replacement takes two technicians more than 120 hours.

The team creates a template for each mount that meets tolerances within three-thousandths of an inch -- a degree of error that is about equal to the diameter of a human hair.

“Once the first crack was discovered, we began the search for technical guidance on what to do,” said Mark Perrodin, a wing structural mechanic. “There were no technical orders to address the (mount), and there was no history to show that the problem had been discovered before. It appeared that the mount was supposed to last the life of the airframe. But since our goal is to double its lifespan, we had to find a way to replace (them).”

Technicians found that new mounts were available, but each one had to be custom-milled to fit each wing set.

To solve this problem, the team turned to structural mechanic and expert machinist Tommy Rollins. Starting with a 3-foot-long block of aluminum, he went to work, inventing a tool that could be used to customize each wing mount.

“We needed a way to make each new mount match the old one exactly,” Mr. Rollins said. “We were able to design and manufacture a specialized tool to accomplish the task.”

Mr. Rollins and the mount team not only developed the tool to repair the wing mounts, they also wrote the procedures for other A-10 teams to follow when repairing these cracks.

At the A-10 systems manager’s request, the tool was shipped to Ogden Air Logistics Center A-10 Depot at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. It is currently being used to repair similar anomalies there. Within a week, Mr. Rollins was in the machine shop making another tool for regeneration center workers here.

Once the new mount is milled to exact specifications, mechanics begin installing it.

First, a template is made to match the exact location and angle for each of the original 14 mounting holes.

With surgical-like skill, a technician installs the old mount, marks the location for one hole, replaces the old mount with the new one and transfers that mark. The procedure must be repeated 24 times to duplicate each individual hole.

Once the new mounts are installed, the wing continues along the line for work on its hydraulics, electronics, fuel cells, sheet metal and under-wing hardpoints used to mount weapons.

When completed, each overhauled wing set is rated for up to 8,000 hours of flight time and installed on an A-10 fuselage that has also undergone a complete refurbishment and upgrades.

Once an aircraft is flight tested, it is ready to return to the warfighter.

[Scrim]

How about upgrading the damn pilots.

[wyrm_142]

How about upgrading the damn pilots.

What's that suppose to mean?

[FallenAngel]

How about upgrading the damn pilots.

What's that suppose to mean?

A-10 pilots have been involved in some pretty bad blue-on-blue incidents in both Gulf Wars. In the most recent one, an A-10 destroyed a British Challenger2 and about a week later, another A-10 straffed US Marines trying to take a bridge in Nasahyria which resulted in about 8 Marine fatalities.

It should be noted however, that the A-10 is almost entirely flow by USAF Reserve and Air National Guard squadrons who don't get as much "experiance" as regular USAF pilots do.

[wyrm_142]

Ok, I figured it was something along those lines.

First, about the Guard & Reserve. We train to the SAME requirments as the Active Duty Air Force ref AFI11-2A-OA-10V1 (http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubs/publist.asp?puborg=AF&series=11). Only once a pilot becomes 'combat mission ready' (CMR) does the guard / reserve sortie count decrease 72 (ANG) / 76 (AFRC) vice 90 (annually).

Most (66-75%) of the Guard / Reserve pilots were once Active duty pilots (this is prolly less in the Hog, due to limited AD units...). The experince is there, and the guard (from my POV) while older is just as capable as AD (likely due to decreased deployments, PCS's etc). AD units always have fresh Lt's that need to get up to speed - my unit has 1 x 1Lt (who has more hours in the F-15 than most junior AD Capt's).

OIF's Frat: the blame lies on both the A-10's and the USMC terminal air controller that DIDN'T know USMC units had crossed the bridge (conversly, you could say that unit is at fault to..). As for the brit tank frat... I don't know - didn't see the report on it. However, if you look at what CAS involves - frat is going to happen - more so when the shooting war is in full force. Frat has decreased tremendously since WWII, due in part to better training. Once the Army figures out what it wants to settle on for a blue force tracker, the A-10 will have it (the money is waiting) adding yet another step in the goal of preventing frat.

[Midav]

What's the percentage of A-10's compared to other aircraft flown for CAS?

[FallenAngel]

What's the percentage of A-10's compared to other aircraft flown for CAS?

That's hard to say. The USMC prefers to use their own for CAS in AV-8Bs and F/A-18s in addition to AH-1Ws. The US Army likes to use it's Apache's for CAS. A-10s *usually* operate about 3-5 miles beyond the front lines (so I have read) to reduce the probability of blue-on-blue incidents. I don't even know if that's even considered CAS or not.

[Midav]

I see.

Not counting the incident in the latest war where British Warrior APC's where attacked while wielding Union Jacks, for the many missions flown, the pilots haven't done bad.

In high intense battlefields, blue on blue attrition is bound to happen. Not making an excuse for it, but, it's bound to happen and hope with even better training and technology this can be avoided.

[king_nothing100]

the most recent one, an A-10 destroyed a British Challenger2

Source?, I was under the impression the only Challenger 2 destroyed in Op Telic was cause by another Challenger 2, and the only A10 incident on us was the one on the convoy which had the union flags on the vehicles.

[W(M)D]

On the basis that the flags were of fcuk all use, an SOP (standard operating procedure) drill was to lob red smoke if under US air attack and every vehicle had to carry them.

[Helly]

the most recent one, an A-10 destroyed a British Challenger2

Source?, I was under the impression the only Challenger 2 destroyed in Op Telic was cause by another Challenger 2, and the only A10 incident on us was the one on the convoy which had the union flags on the vehicles.

FallenAngel is mistaken. It was an incident with a couple of Scimitar light tanks, not a Challenger 2.

BBC news article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2901515.stm)

[A Soldier]

I hope they keep it operational for some time now, my brother will be commissoned next year and he wants to get the A-10 although he might not

[YankeeDeVallecas]

What a coinciedence...I was reading this thread and at the same time on the History Channel the showed a commerical for a documentary on the A-10 tonight at 8 or 9. Guess where I'll be? :D

[FallenAngel]

the most recent one, an A-10 destroyed a British Challenger2

Source?, I was under the impression the only Challenger 2 destroyed in Op Telic was cause by another Challenger 2, and the only A10 incident on us was the one on the convoy which had the union flags on the vehicles.

FallenAngel is mistaken. It was an incident with a couple of Scimitar light tanks, not a Challenger 2.

BBC news article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2901515.stm)

Thanks Helly.

I just heard they were British Tanks....assumed they were Challengers.

[2RHPZ]

Crazy Article or Does it make sense?


Attack of the Hog Killers
Why the Generals Hate the A-10
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

It's ugly. It's lumbering and it's old. But the A-10 Warthog almost certainly remains the best performing airplane in the Air Force's fleet. The 30-year-old attack plane is safe, efficient, durable and cheap. GI's call it the friend of the grunt, because it flies low, showers lethal covering fire and greatly reduces the risk of friendly fire deaths and civilian casualties.

While the high-tech fighters and attack helicopters faltered in desert winds, smoke-clotted skies and in icy temperatures, the A-10 proved a workhorse in Gulf War I, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the latest war on Iraq.

Naturally, the Air Force brass now wants to junk it.

On May 27, 2003 the New York Times ran an op-ed by Robert Coram describing the Air Force's plot to retire the A-10. Coram, author of the highly regarded Boyd: the Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, revealed that in early April, Maj. General David Deptula of the Air Combat Command, ordered a subordinate to write a memo justifying the decommissioning of the A-10 fleet. Remember, this move came at one of the most perilous moments in the Iraq war, when the A-10 was proving its worthiness once again.

Why does the Air Force want to get rid of its most efficient plane? Coram says that the Air Force never liked the A-10 because it cut against the grain of the post-WW II Air Force mentality, which is fixated on high-altitude strategic bombing and the deployment of smart weapons fired at vast distances from the target. Indeed, the A-10 was rushed into development only because the Air Force feared that the Army's new Cheyenne attack helicopter might cut the Air Force out of the ground support role, and hence much of the action (and money).

The A-10, built in the 1970s by Fairchild Industries, skims the ground at lower than 1,000 in altitude, can nearly hover over the battlefield, and spews out almost 4,000 rounds of armor-penetrating bullets per minute. (These are also the weapons coated with depleted uranium that have irradiated so much of Iraq and Afghanistan.) Pilots love the plane because it is easy to fly and safe: the cockpit is sealed in a titanium shell to protect the pilot from groundfire, it has a bulky but sturdy frame, three sets of back up controls and a foam-filled fuel tank.

Of course, the most damning factor against the A-10 in the eyes of the generals is the fact that it is old, ugly and cheap-especially cheap. The Air Force generals are infatuated with big ticket items, new technology and sleek new machines. The fastest way to a promotion inside the Air Force is to hitch your name to a rising new weapons system, the more expensive the better. When it comes time to retire, the generals who've spent their careers pumping new weapons systems are assured of landing lucrative new careers with defense contractors.

So each time the A-10 proves itself in battle, the cries for its extinction by Air Force generals become more intense and hysterical. Since the first Gulf War, where the A-10 outperformed every other aircraft even though the Stealth fighter got all the hype, the Air Force has been quietly mothballing the A-10 fleet. During the first Gulf War, the A-10s destroyed more than half of the 1,700 Iraqi tanks knocked out by air strikes. A-10s also took out about 300 armored personnel carriers and artillery sites. At the end of the war there were 18 A-10 squadrons. Now they've been winnowed down to only eight.

In place of the A-10, the Air Force brass is pushing the congress to pour billions into the production of the F/A-22 (at $252 million per plane) and the F-35 fighter (at a minimum of $40 million per plane). These are planes designed to fight an enemy that doesn't exist and probably never will.

The generals are trying desperately to convince skeptics that the F-35 fighter jet can perform the kind of close air support for ground troops that is the calling card of the A-10. As Coram notes, the F-35 will be so expensive and so vulnerable to enemy fire (it can be taken down by an AK-47 machine gun) that Air Force commanders are unlikely to allow it to fly over hostile terrain below 10,000 feet.

But before they can consign the A-10 to the scrap heap, the Generals must first silence the plane's defenders, many of them inside the Pentagon. The witch hunt has already begun.

A few hours after Coram's article appeared, Lt. General Bruce L. Wright, Vice Commander of the Air Combat Command, at Langley Air Force Base, in Virginia, fired off a scathing memo ordering his staff to begin a search-and-destroy mission against the whistleblowers who leaked information to Coram.

"Please look your staffs in the eye and offer that if one of our officers is complicit in going in going to Mr. Coram, without coming to you or me first with their concerns," the General wrote. "They ought to look hard at themselves, their individual professionalism, and their personal commitment to telling the complete story."

General Wright then reminded his directors that it was their duty to "constantly look at upgrading our aircraft and weapons systems" and instructed them to promote the "good news" about the "B-2, F/A22, the F35 and even the UCAVs."

The problem for General Wright and his cohorts in the upper echelons of the Air Force is that the new generation of high-tech planes have returned from the last three wars with less than stellar records and lots of bullet holes from lightly armed forces with no functioning air defense system.

Take the Army's vaunted Apache attack helicopter, which the Army generals are touting as a multi-billion dollar replacement for the A-10. During the Kosovo war, 24 Apaches were sent to the US airbase in Albania. In the first week of the war, two choppers crashed in training missions and the remainder of the helicopters were grounded for the duration of the air war.

In Afghanistan, during Operation Anaconda, seven Apaches were sent to attack Taliban forces in the mountains near Tora Bora. All got hit by machine gun fire, with five of them being so shut up that they were effectively destroyed.

In Iraq, according to an excellent April 23 account in Slate by Fred Kaplan, 33 Apaches led the initial attack on Republican Guard positions in Karbala, where they encountered heavy machine gun fire and a few rocket-propelled grenades. One was shot down; it's crew taken as prisoners. The other Apaches soon turned tail, with more than 30 of them sustaining serious damage.

But instead of rehabbing the fleet of A-10s, the Pentagon persists in promoting budget-busting new systems that are dangerous to pilots and civilians and ineffective against even the most primitively-armed enemy soldiers.

"For more than 20 years, the Warthog has been a hero to the soldiers whose lives depend on effective air support," says Eric Miller, a defense investigator at the Project on Government Oversight. "The A-10 works and it's cheap. But for some reason that's not good enough for the Air Force."

For the courtiers at the Pentagon, the battles of Afghanistan and Iraq are mere sideshows to the real and perpetual war: the endless raid on the federal treasury. It is a war that only the defense contractors and their political pawns will win. Everyone else, from pilots and taxpayers to civilians, will be collateral damage.

[Merik]

Glad to hear that they are keeping the Hog around cause its our, groundpounders, best friend. Interesting note however that that article did not mention anything about the USAF's plans to replace A-10s with F-16s.

[Nizark]

ahahaha, everytime they try to take out the hog, they have to change their mind. That ****in plane cant ever be stopped

[2RHPZ]

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[marktigger]

HERE WE GO AGAIN :cantbeli:

OK yes lets get some decent piolts to fly them not AFRes or AirNG's and teach them AFV recognition.

BTW it was 2 scimitar's that the A10's took out the Challanger 2 was taken out by another Challanger 2

But glad to see the A10 being upgraded its an excellent platform just a pity the USAF want Dogfighting aircraft and can't get better pilots.

[mattnwnc03]

i love that plane, one my favorites. its a grunts plane

[usa320]

Its not an issue of the A-10's pilots.

Its an issue of mission.

The A-10 pilot is more likely to get a fratricide than say an F-14 pilot because he is performing CAS missions extremely close to friendly position, where as other pilots and planes are hitting supply lines and factories and airfields, usually miles from friendly forces.

A-10's on the other hand are extremely close- within 500 meters at times, of friendly forces.

And A-10 pilots do NOT pickle weapons unless the go-ahead is given from the Forward Air Controller. The FAC is the one that says "GO AHEAD AND DROP". Without permission from the FAC, the hog driver will not pickle. So the real thing that needs to be looked at is the communication between FAC and A-10.

I think they need to retrofit the A-10 with a total glass cockpit. More advanced GPS system (it has GPS already, but its nothing like the GPS on most planes. All it does is give coordinates and heading. It doesnt show a map or anything of that nature.) The A-10 pilots are still forced to pull out paper maps and binoculars to try and locate their position with regards to ground forces. I think the better thing to do, would be to give it a full glass cockpit- complete with moving map- which would be datalinked to JSTARS, AWACS,command and FAC's to show the positions of all friendly forces and all known enemy forces. With UAV's and Datalink technology thats availible today its more than possible. Also, they need to replace the A-10's laser targeting system, which is rather dated. They should give it the LANTIRN system that the F-16C and F-15E have. Its just an issue of them not wanting to do it. They rather spend the money on the F-35...which, just like the F-16, will never replace the niche filled by the A-10.

[2RHPZ]

HERE WE GO AGAIN :cantbeli:



Look at the date of both post ... Anyway, I don´t mind if someone post something twice. Much worse would be if we miss something.

Regards

CAG 147