Air Force Looking Into New Plane To Replace the A-10

The debate about a new CAS Fixed-Wing Airplane (and the lack of a USAF initiative/development/procurement program to replace the aging A-10 Warthog) to many people, including Sen. John McCain, shows that the US Air Force simply isn't interested in spending any of the hundreds of Billions of dollars that it is currently spending/managing in Procurement programs such as the F-22 or F-35 to develop a Close Air Support fixed Wing Aircraft to replace the A-10 Warthog (which it seems to be doing everything to kill off).

If you are at all interested in having a single role CAS Fixed Wing Aircraft to support our Infantry and other fighting men and women on the ground, this should piss you off. To me it is just more evidence of the lack of leadership at the highest levels of the US Air Force, Military and Civilian to not anticipate or understand how critical this capability is to supplement, the Attack Helicopters, and the fast moving Attack/Bombers, which often cannot linger in the battle space to support ground troops.

This also supports my theory that the current US DOD is not organized around the basic principal that we buy equipment that is necessary to win wars, but rather we spend Defense procurement dollars to support entrenched financial interests and their constituent backers (local Congressional advocates), especially when it comes major contractors like LockheedMartin/Boeing/ McDonnell Douglas/Northrup. It is about profits first, winning wars second. Maybe it has always been that way. Maybe this was something that Ike Eisenhower figured out along time ago, during his Active Duty Army Days, that led him to make his famous "Beware the Military/Industrial Complex speech."

I am sure the sweetest thing an infantry unit in contact can hear coming over the Net is "Air is on station." Too bad they are not going to hear that about the A-10 Warthog soon, or its replacement CAS fixed wing, long on station, fast to get there, big, mixed, payload. Capt Jeff S.