A-10C ready for combat
by Michael Sirak,
Defense Daily
08/22/2007
LANGLEY AFB, Va.--Air Force officials announced yesterday that the A-10C ground-attack aircraft, the significantly upgraded version of the venerable A-10A Thunderbolt II, is now ready for combat, with the first squadron of them expected to deploy to Iraq within the next 30 days. "Behind me stands a war bird and she is ready to go to war," Gen. Ronald Keys, commander of Air Combat Command (ACC), said at the initial-operational-capability (IOC) ceremony here to mark the event, which occurred just over one year after the first upgraded A-10C rolled out of depot at Hill AFB, Utah, with its new digital cockpit and improved weapons interfaces and targeting pod integration.
"When we started this program, it was along and hard process," Keys said. "Some of the hardest wars that we fight are not on the battlefield. Those wars are fought in the halls of Congress and are fought in the Pentagon and are fought in programs to make sure that the money you committed stays committed, and make sure that the program that you are operating doesn't grow and run out of money. So I appreciate the support that we got from everybody." The new A-10C model, he continued, "is going to make us better in the air and it is going to make us better on the ground."
With the combat-ready declaration, the first two squadrons to be fully equipped with the A-10C, both Air National Guard (ANG) units, are cleared to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, the Maryland ANG's 104th Fighter Squadron, which features 17 front-line A-10Cs, will deploy to Iraq in "less than 30 days," Brig. Gen. Guy Walsh, commander of the Maryland ANG's 175th Fighter Wing, which includes the 104th, told the audience here. The second unit is Michigan ANG's 172nd Fighter Squadron, also with 17 primary aircraft authorized. "Today is a great day for Lockheed Martin. Today is a great day for our entire industry team, but much more importantly, this is a great day for the United States Air Force," said Stephen Ramsey, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration-Owego [LMT], the A-10C prime contractor, during his speech here.
There is no milestone more important than "when you actually deliver the operational capability to the warfighter," Ramsey said. "That is what we all worked so hard for, and that is why we are so delighted to be here today to share in that celebration of the IOC of the A-10C."
The Air Force intends to upgrade its entire fleet of 356 A-10s to the C configuration under the Lockheed Martin-led Precision Engagement (PE) initiative, the most extensive modification effort in the history of the aircraft, which entered service in 1976 and is commonly known as the Warthog.
PE entails numerous enhancements, including new digital cockpit displays and flight controls, a new datalink, full integration of targeting pods, and the ability to deploy all-weather satellite-guidance-aided munitions. "It used to be very much hands off of the throttle and stick, writing things down, typing things in," said Lt. Col. Timothy Smith, commander of the 104th Fighter Squadron, in describing to reporters how the changes improve the aircraft. "Now I am integrated with the airplane a lot better where I can receive information and I can integrate it into my systems, faster, quicker, more effectively."
Lockheed Martin's industry team includes BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman [NOC], and Southwest Research Institute. The team supplies the PE upgrade kits to the Air Force, which then installs them at Ogden Air Logistics Center on the grounds of Hill. The service rolled out the first A-10C from Ogden on August 18, 2006 (Defense Daily, August, 22, 2006).
Lt. Col. Ralph Hansen, director of A-10 requirements within ACC, told reporters after the ceremony that the Air Force plans to have the entire fleet converted to the new configuration by early 2011. About 75 aircraft have been fitted with the kits to date, he said.
While it took 163 days to complete installation of the kit on the first aircraft, Ogden has now reached the desired flow rate of about 91 days per aircraft, Air Force officials said here. It requires about six to eight months to covert a squadron to the A-10C. The total cost of the PE program is pegged at about $500 million, Hansen said. The per-unit amortized cost is $1.4 million, he said.
The Air Force intends to keep the A-10 in service out to 2028 and keep the platform viable to enable 16,000 lifetime flight hours, about half of which have been consumed per aircraft on average, said Hansen. The A-10 will be replaced by the F-35 Lighting II multirole stealth fighter aircraft.
While the PE is a substantial improvement to the A-10A model, the Air Force still needs to undertake additional work to keep the aircraft structurally sound for that long. The service also wants to upgrade the A-10's existing General Electric [GE] TF34-GE-100 turbofan engines for added thrust, enabling, for example, better performance in high-altitude and hot-temperature environments.
Indeed said Keys, the A-10C sans these additional features is still "not the super 'hog" that the service envisions but rather "a better than average 'hog."
Toward the objective standard, the Air Force chose Boeing [BA] in June over Lockheed Martin to supply new wings for 242 A-10s that have comparatively thinner wings and are experiencing structural cracks that could make these aircraft unsafe to fly by the middle of next decade (Defense Daily, July 9 and July 2 and March 16, 2006). And Hansen said the Air Force has requested money in its FY'08 supplemental request to purchase some upgraded engines to test them on the platform.
The Air Force also intends to add the AN/AAR-47 Missile Approach Warning System to the jet to bolster its self-protection capabilities and is installing ARC-210 radios for secure line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight communications. It also would like at some point to integrate an affordable helmet-mounted cueing system in the A-10C cockpit and perhaps add a new infrared countermeasures system.
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