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Why not beat them in to complete submission if they really are this desperate? Reminds me too much of our pauses in VietNam while we talked, and the Vietcong schemed and fortified.

Honest question, could they convert to an F-16, 15, etc…, keep an air to air capability but make it a sim only CT event and yearly live fly exercise or something that could keep the Attack Mission with focus on CAS but retain some Air to Air capacity, honing it if required but always kept to at least a simmer? Modified RTM that is.

Nailed it.

Transitioning the remaining A-10 units to F-16 would be the way. But given how dumb we can be, it wouldn't surprise me if they push those squadrons to F-35, and then convert a handfull of C-130 units to F-16s. But realistically this will slow roll until the current Bob's are out of the seats; and then instutional mono-mania will set back in and all focus will be on NGAD.

Don’t make it out to be anything beyond hanging out with dudes in your squadron. Act/talk like your normal self - they’re just dudes hanging out over beers, just like you. Don’t get shitfaced - know when to take a break/stop.

Yep, and I personally think that’s still the best answer. But, just need to have it all lined up vs. scrambling at the 11th hour (I know, wishful thinking). A great move would be Boise - getting Blk 40s, just have them transition to the new jet with no/little change in DOC statement. Profit from the shit ton of experience they have (who are all about to leave ASAP…so, maybe just a theoretical win at this point)

The answer back then was guard Vipers, and a few AD TASS units (Nellis, Korea, and maybe Spang?) for advocacy reasons. I don't think the plan made it out of the A3 before the A-10 got saved again though. The giant problem is the RTM. There isn't enough room to do a like for like transition without almost completely dropping air to air, which was a non-starter for the F-15E.

We started this in 2015-16 timeframe, but ACC better figure out who’s taking CSAR (fighter-wise) and “CAS culture.” The A-10 will die someday, even if it has another surprise lease in the future. Should be a prime focus for someone in the community. You got 4 years, don’t fuck it up!

FY26 Pilot select here. Good luck yall. Sharing my stats for yalls reference. PCSM: 96 Pilot Score: 97 PPL: No Flt hrs: 11 hours Sq Ranking: 1 of 1 Wing Ranking: 6 of 7 LOR: From my sq cc I have attend the Rated Prep Program (RPP). Strongly recommend attending if possible. Applied as a 2nd Lt with zero deployments or special duties. Awards: 1x Sq quarterly award. Keep in mind that while high stats are great, the content of your LOR and personal letter weigh just as heavy. Several people have had 100 PCSMs and 100 Pilot scores with 100+ flight hours, but still do not get selected.

Uhh.. I do. I’m no fan of this admin or this war but this isn’t black ops in places we aren’t supposed to be, this is a named operation and lying about casualties in public military ops is not a bridge that we’ve crossed as far as I’m aware. Our military social media ecosystem is also so interconnected it would be pretty tough to keep that stuff secret in this conflict. Dudes are snap chatting their aircraft carrier chow hall dinner rations and filming FPV video of TBMs hitting nearby.. pretty sure if the government was keeping large numbers of casualties secret that would stay secret for a grand total of 5 minutes. There are enough valid reasons this war is dumb let’s not get into actual nonsense conspiracy land

Ops to Ops for everyone! Sucks to be the last Lt showing up to a squadron right now, 4 years of being the SNACKO and scheduler.

Imgflipbuford t justicehttps://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/04/20/us-air-force-extends-a-10-warthog-through-2030/

What are they replacing them with?

Ah, thanks. Missed the qualifier. That said... Only 22 states have fighter units!

Do you really believe only 13 dead?

Well its a 4/20 miracle got my dates for live laugh Laughlin starting IPT 6 Aug. I talked to the guy at AFPC this morning so he was following up with the scheduler for those of us still waiting.

KEND 26-09AU T-38C x9 (5 AD, 1 Guard, 3 international) KC-135 Altus KC-135 General Mitchell T-6 FAIP T-6C Vietnam C-130H Minneapolis x2 EA-37B Davis-Monthan E-3 Tinker C-17 Altus x2 C-17 McChord AFRC C-5 Dover AFRC RC-135 Offutt

The last A-10 RTU has closed so..... What now?

I'm sure most of the parts are the same. Most of the body panels are gray, so I'm sure they're interchangeable. Say, how do you think the A-10 will do with afterburning motors?

I’m wondering how that’s going to work since a lot of the F-16 SPO absorbed a lot of the A-10 SPO personnel in the last few months.

@Sua Sponte , get over to the hangar, and tell them to get that depot line started back up!

Extended until 2030 boys!

And the people are only half the problem. Even if we had all the guard folks in the world we don’t have the jets for them to fly. Just using open source numbers we went from 4,000+ fighters in 1990 to 1,500-2000 today. Bombers down from 300-400 to just barely over 100. Obviously systems are more capable and precise now but that doesn’t make up for sheer volume if you’re talking about force cuts of 60-75%. A lot of people don’t realize how deep these cuts have been and still think we can throw desert storm 1 volume at problems and absolutely steamroll adversaries. The reality is we can’t come close to that anymore and I think it has created some unrealistic expectations in this conflict

That's valid. I was AD and then ANG and I'll tell you that the guard being used like AD is crushing the guard. Guard fighter guys can make RAP flying less than their AD counterpart and historically it's been because the average guard guy is WAY more experienced than the average AD fighter pilot. No white jet tours, no ALO assignments, etc. A guard baby could spend 30+ years flying combat coded jets non-stop and possibly the same tail numbers. That type of experience is impossible in AD. But you start deploying guard units like they're AD units and suddenly there isn't anyone in the guard with 30+ years of experience because they decided the time away and the loss of income wasn't worth it anymore. No idea if my experience was typical, but I'd bet the average experience level in my guard unit dropped by 690 hours in my 8 years. That's close to two tours in CAF units worth of experience (assuming no circles in the sky deployments). That's brand new wingman to IP loss of experience. That's a big deal. The part timers flying for 30 years straight may not be the tip of the spear in current 3-1 knowledge, but throw them into a crazy situation no one has thought to train to and their experience will bring them through way better than the 700 hour CAF IP that can rattle off all the threat data.