Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Eugene Oliver) Throughout the four-day surge, pilots and maintainers completed 131 sorties spanning approximately 152 flying hours. The exercise was conducted to determine Airmen’s abilities to perform effectively while generating combat or training sorties at an accelerated rate. Jeremy Johnston, 75th Fighter Squadron assistant director of operations, prepares to taxi an A-10C Thunderbolt II during a sortie surge exercise, July 24, 2019, at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. That need prompted the initiation of the A-10 Common Fleet Initiative that, according to Combat Aircraft, already started implementing some of the new upgrades. Since the new wings will make possible for the A-10C to stay in service until the late 2030s, the Air Force needed also the aircraft to be a credible and lethal threat in that timeframe, should the need to deploy it during an eventual high-end conflict arise. Air Force awarded Boeing a second contract, worth up to 999M USD, that will provide up to 112 new wing assemblies, completing the re-winging of all 281 A-10s currently in inventory. According to the Air Force Materiel Command, the upgraded wings should last for up to 10,000 flight hours without requiring a depot inspection. The new upgrades come after the completion, at the end of July 2019, of a first re-winging program that saw the installation of new wings, built by Boeing, on 173 A-10s, 162 of which were installed by the 571st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at the Ogden Air Logistics Complex at Hill Air Force Base and the remaining 11 were re-winged at Osan Air Base in South Korea. Air Force inventory until late 2030s, Combat Aircraft magazine recelty reported.
A 10c cockpit upgrade#
The A-10C Thunderbolt II, affectionately known by its pilot as “Warthog”, will get a new major upgrade trough the A-10 Common Fleet Initiative, that will keep it in the U.S. The A-10 Common Fleet Initiative will keep the aircraft flying into the 2030s.
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