On The Cheap

I am reading how the USAF wants (and is accomplishing) to finally kill off the A-10 Thunderbolt II (aka Warthog) to pay for F-35A.

A fully loaded A-10C is a frighteningly cheap airplane.  They are refurbished from original build A-10As.  716 were originally built at a unit cost of a mere $18.6 million a piece in today's dollars.  The refurb was for 356 airframes for a cost of about $965 thousand per plane.

Compare that to $113 million a piece for an F-35A.

There's evidence that the costs almost five times as much F-35A is about 1/4 as capable at close air support as the 40 year old Hog.

Word is the F-35A is not comparing favorably to the $26.76 million F-16C it's meant to replace too.  For this math to make sense, a Lightning II has to be four times better than a Viper at EVERYTHING. We won't even get into the fact that the F-16C is not the most advanced version of the plane in production (and still for a lot less than $113 million per plane).  It's telling that the troops are demanding the Warthog overhead when they can rather than F-16's because the Viper can't hang around for very long or carry near the number of passes against the bad guys.

In doing some of the research on planes the Air Force hated I bumped into an old friend.  The A-7D.  In today's dollars a mere $16 million per plane.  Accounts from Vietnam indicate that the A-7D was a good CAS plane.

The problem is the USAF doesn't want to do the CAS job or let anyone else have fixed wing planes that can.

I am getting very sick of reading about them shirking a job they are chartered to do.

They don't wanna haul cargo, but fuck if anyone else will.  (COUGH COUGH C-27J COUGH)

They don't wanna do CAS, but fuck if anyone else will; this is why the Army has helicopters with an AH designation.  It's why the troops on the ground pray for Marines overhead instead of zoomies.

They want to have nukes (so they can lose them apparently) and they want sexy hair on fire fighters.  And nothing else.

And I am sick of reading about it.  I am sick of doing the math and noticing that we're not getting our money's worth from our purchases when the USAF is attached.  The Navy has a much better track record for keeping costs on aircraft under control.  By the way, the A-7D started life as a Navy plane.  The F-4 Phantom started life as a Navy plane.  Maybe it's time to nuke the USAF, roll the CAS back into the Army and Marines and give the air superiority mission to the Navy.