Archive for the 'Air Force' Category

AF.mil.

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. —  The 422nd and 59th Test and Evaluation Squadrons proved that modern-day armored vehicles equipped with Explosive Reactive Armor are vulnerable to the A-10C Thunderbolt II’s GAU-8 Avenger. This first-ever test was conducted at the Nevada Test and Training Range, February 14-25, 2022.

Each test mission included a two-ship of A-10Cs employing armor piercing incendiary rounds against two surrogate main battle tanks equipped with ERA. The pilots varied attack parameters and direction in order to evaluate weapons effects against the up-armored targets.

Through post-shot analysis of video, photo imagery, and visual inspection of the targets, analysts were able to ascertain the battle damage inflicted upon the tanks and determine that the tanks were rendered inoperative.

“A typical A-10 gun employment uses 120 rounds, which means an A-10 is capable of employing fires on nine to ten targets before exhausting its gun munitions,” said Maj. Kyle Adkison, 422nd TES A-10C division commander. “Against large fielded forces, A-10 formations are capable of engaging nearly 40 armored vehicles with 30 millimeter munitions. That’s a significant amount of firepower.”

In addition to 30mm gun rounds, the test also collected data on AGM-65L Maverick and AGR-20E Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System effectiveness against armored vehicles.

“This has been an ongoing test effort since the idea originated in 2020,” said 1st Lt. Christopher Earle, 59th TES A-10C operations test analyst. “Now that it’s come to fruition and proven successful, we will work towards testing other types of anti-armor munitions in the Air Force inventory against ERA and collect more data.”

The A-10 is well suited for Agile Combat Employment roles, and this test proves the A-10 can continue to deliver massive rapid firepower with devastating effects on enemy vehicles in a contested environment.

For all the folks who say that sexy-jet so-and-so is better, there is no jet in the USAF that can do what the A-10 does.  For its purposes, it rules the skies.

Via WiscoDave.

Tell me this isn’t the coolest thing you’ve ever seen. In another life and another possible world I might have been an A-10 pilot.

Oh, and by the way, only fools want to retire the A-10. It’s the coolest aircraft flown by the USAF. I would request this job over any other.

I am sharing this with the caveat that I have no way of independently confirming this account.

It works.  The Marines and Soldiers love it.  It’s a life saver.  It’s the greatest close air support aircraft ever built. It isn’t a “fifth generation warfare” F-35, so the flybois don’t want it.

Of course.

Daily Beast:

Here’s something the public didn’t know until today: If one of the U.S. military’s new F-35 stealth fighters has to climb at a steep angle in order to dodge an enemy attack, design flaws mean the plane might suddenly tumble out of control and crash.

Also, some versions of the F-35 can’t accelerate to supersonic speed without melting their own tails or shedding the expensive coating that helps to give the planes their radar-evading qualities.

The Pentagon’s $400-billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, one of the biggest and most expensive weapons programs in history, has come under fire, so to speak, over more than a decade for delays, rising costs, design problems and technical glitches.

But startling reports by trade publication Defense News on Wednesday revealed flaws that previously only builder Lockheed Martin, the military, and the plane’s foreign buyers knew about.

The newly-exposed problems underscore the potential fragility of American air power as the armed services work to replace more and more old fighters with as many as 2,300 F-35s while also reconfiguring to confront the increasingly deadly Chinese and Russian air forces.

The problems might also help to explain why acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan reportedly described the F-35 program as “fucked up.”

Defense News obtained military documents detailing a wide range of serious problems with two of the three versions of the F-35. The Air Force’s F-35A appears to be exempt from the latest flaws, but the Marine Corps’ vertical-landing F-35B and the Navy’s carrier-compatible F-35C both suffer what the services call “category 1” deficiencies. (In military parlance, a category 1 flaw in a plane can prevent a pilot from accomplishing their mission.)

[ … ]

One problem cropped up during test flights in 2011, Defense News reported, citing the trove of military documents. In the 2011 tests, at least one F-35B and F-35C both flew at speeds of Mach 1.3 and Mach 1.4. A post-flight inspection in November 2011 revealed the F-35B sustained “bubbling [and] blistering” of its stealth coating.

Further supersonic tests in December 2011 revealed structural damage on an F-35C resulting from the extreme heat coming from the plane’s single Pratt & Whitney engine, one of the most powerful fighter engines ever made.

To avoid similar damage, the military has limited F-35B and F-35C pilots to flying at supersonic speed for less than a minute at a time.

But that could make it impossible for aviators to keep up with, or avoid, Russian and Chinese fighters flying faster than the speed of sound without any restrictions. “It is infeasible for the Navy or Marine Corps to operate the F-35 against a near-peer threat under such restrictions,” Defense News paraphrased the documents as saying.

But MIC isn’t done with the insults and malfeasance.  Not by a long shot.

A Chinese-owned company is making circuit boards for the top-secret next generation F-35 warplanes flown by Britain and the United States, Sky News can reveal.

Exception PCB, a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer in Gloucestershire, south west England, produces circuit boards that “control many of the F-35’s core capabilities”, according to publicity material produced by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD).

This includes “its engines, lighting, fuel and navigation systems”, it said.

If the FedGov had actually made an assignment to the DoD to do it’s dead level best to spend the most money on the worst possible outcome, I don’t think they could have done any better than they did.

Fifth generation warfare.  Sounds nice.  How do you feel about your dollars spent?

Military.com:

While the congressionally mandated close-air support tests between the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and A-10 Warthog wrapped up this week, lawmakers may not be satisfied with the results as questions continue to swirl about how each performed.

“I personally wrote the specific provisions in the [Fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act] mandating a fly-off between the F-35 & A-10,” Rep. Martha McSally, an Arizona Republican, tweeted Friday. “It must be carried out per Congressional intent & direction.”

McSally, a former A-10 pilot whose home state includes Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, said she had reached out to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein to “ensure an objective comparison.”

The requirement that the two aircraft go up against each other was included as a provision in the bill amid congressional concerns over plans to retire the A-10 and replace it with the F-35. McSally was one of the architects of the bill’s language.

Her comments follow a Project on Government Oversight report that slams what it calls skewed testing techniques, saying the flights overwhelmingly favored the F-35.

Well of course it did.  The effeminate fly boys must have their drones and 5GW electronics and sexy air frames to impress the other effeminate boys.  But if you ask me, there is nothing sexier looking than an A-10.  Any country that would give up such a magnificent air frame deserves what’s coming.

I had missed it until this article, but there is a very nice video – well worth watching in its entirety – of the distinction between A-10 pilots and everyone else.  They are grunts in the sky.  But before we get there, watch the devastation that 30mm gun can bring down on the enemy.  Fast forward to the 6:24 mark.  The caption says it takes a while to call in an air strike.

And now for grunts in the sky.

Military.com:

“Leadership are exploring disciplinary actions and are checking to see if this is a broader issue on the base,” Sukach told Military.com in an email.

Using “Facebook Live” as a platform to vent about her work environment, Lovely recently made profane slurs against black female subordinates.

Executives for the page said Lovely works at the base’s fitness center as an administrator.

The NCO questions her subordinates’ attitudes in the profane-laced video rant.

These “f—ing issues with my airmen and my NCOs, that are lower ranking than me, but they’re black females. And it pisses me the f— off that they have no f—ing respect and constantly having an attitude, and what the f— is up with that?” Lovely says in the video.

“Like I’m trying my best to hold my professionalism with them, but good God, that they don’t have f—ing respect whatsoever. Everytime I talk to them, [imitating the airmen] ‘No, ma’am,’ ” she says.

She continues, “It’s just like, they’re talking down to me. And I’m trying to tread lightly as a higher-ranking NCO not to f—ing blow the f— up and start a fight club.”

Hmm … no respect, talking down, Facebook responses … Hmm.  It looks like we’re ready for that next full scale conventional war against a near peer state.

For some oddball reason, it occurs to me again to embed the Gunny.

Defense News:

Two years after the Air Force tried to force its aging A-10 Warthog fleet into retirement, officials are exploring whether to procure a potential replacement for the aircraft famed for its powerful defense of troops on the ground.

But whether the service chooses a clean-sheet design or tries to modify a currently available jet, experts say the service will face an uphill battle in terms of getting funding during a tight fiscal climate where it may have to battle other modernization programs for money ­– despite hopes that foreign customers may be interested in such an aircraft.

The Air Force in recent years has had a complicated relationship with the Warthog, the common name given to the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. The service attempted to retire the plane in fiscal 2015 and 2016 due to the spending constraints caused by mandatory budget cuts, and was rebuffed by Congress both years. Finally, in its fiscal year 2017 budget request, it opted to retain the aircraft until 2022 in part due to the platform’s utility in the fight against the Islamic State.

Both the outgoing and incoming Air Force chiefs of staff have been banging the drum for a follow-on close air support (CAS) aircraft in recent weeks, describing one that would be cheaper to operate and incorporate modern technologies. That would require an expansion of the service’s budget, former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told reporters days before his June retirement.

“I’d like to build a new CAS airplane right now while we still have the A-10, transition the A-10 community to the new CAS airplane, but we just don’t have the money to do it, and we don’t have the people to fly the A-10 and build a new airplane and bed it down,” he said.

Starting a new program is never easy, but the service doesn’t necessarily have to spend huge amounts of time and money to develop a new platform, he told Defense News in an exclusive interview earlier in June.

“I think you can do it much quicker than people think you can,” he said. “We don’t have to come up with sensors and weapons that are cosmic. That’s not what we need. We’re talking about something that can do the bulk of the low threat, maybe a little bit of medium threat work in rugged environments all over the world.”

But it all comes back to that “we don’t have enough money” bullshit.  Woe is us, the Congress won’t fund out stupid fifth generation warfare video games.  Oh, oh, whatever shall we do?

In his interview with Defense News, Welsh said he believed the development of a new close air support platform could generate numerous foreign military sales.

“It’s something we can teach our allies to fly, something we could probably sell overseas. There’s lots of air forces looking for this kind of capability,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of interest in lots of places to developing this kind of a platform.”

Analysts, however, were skeptical that an A-10 replacement would find a wide market, particularly if it was a single-mission aircraft.

“The A-10 is arguably the best CAS aircraft of its generation, yet to date the U.S. has remained the only operator,” Douglas Barrie, IISS senior fellow, said in an email. “At a time when defense spending in many countries remains under pressure, finding the resource for a single-role platform, rather than a multi-role combat aircraft, strikes me as a challenge.”

Talking up the export potential of a new CAS plane is beneficial to the Air Force if it can get industry to start investing their own funds into new designs or concepts, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of the Teal Group. However, most countries would rather funnel their money to multi-mission fighter jets.

Some analysts even suggested the Air Force’s newfound enthusiasm for replacing the A-10 with a new CAS plane should be understood as a backdoor approach to finally mothballing the Warthog for good.

That’s because it is, and mothballing the A-10 and pouring money into that piss-poor aircraft, the F-35 – that sucks at everything and costs virtually everything the Air Force has, from first born to right testicles – is stupid to everyone who has two brain cells.  But it has the Air Force and Pentagon hooked like a cheap hooker and drugs, to the point that they want a inspired manufacturer to market a small prop plane for CAS that would get shot out of the sky to the point that pilots would refuse to fly it, if it didn’t get laughed out of the sky first.

This is all a solution in search of a problem.  I recently spoke to a retired A-10 mechanic, and almost the first words out of our mouths was what a bad ass aircraft the A-10 was.  It is the manliest, best designed air frame in history for what it does.  It makes enemy troops tremble in fear and run for their lives.  The F-35 cannot ever be a replacement for the A-10.  The Air Force isn’t interested in the A-10 anymore because the Air Force couldn’t care less about supporting ground troops with CAS.  They want to play video games.

Got it, Soldiers and Marines?  By trying to kill the A-10, the Air Force is saying you can die for all they care.  The next time you see a fly boy, let him know what you think of their disdain for you.

Fiscal Times:

Top U.S. Air Force generals are floating the idea of buying a new warplane to support ground troops better and more cheaply than the venerable A-10 Warthog.

In addition to its utility against militants and other light-to-medium forces, Air Force leaders hope this new close air support, or CAS, plane will help them win the fight to retire the A-10. And they are even beginning to envision an aircraft beyond that, in concepts variously known as the “arsenal plane” or “flying Coke machine.”

“I’d love to build a new CAS airplane right now while we still have the A-10 [and then] transition the A-10 community into the new CAS airplane,” Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, said Wednesday at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. “We just don’t have the money to do it and we don’t have the people to keep flying the A-10 and build a new airplane and bed it down.”

Of course you don’t have money to do it.  You’re throwing away billions of dollars on the F-35, a piece of shit that can’t do anything well and does a lot of things wrong, and you’re doing it because you’re enamored by this stupid idea of fifth generation warfare.

Only the U.S. Air Force could promote such idiots.  Elsewhere in the news, here is a video of a crew getting an A-10 ready for launch.

The A-10 is the manliest, baddest aircraft ever to be invented by mankind.  Leave it to the Air Force to be in love with something else.  Look, if you’re a proponent of the F-35, except for throwing away our money (for which I want to beat you up one side of the road and down the other), you can still hang out with the boys, but we’ll have to wait in the car for you to put on your lipstick and skirt.

My family and I many times had the pleasure of observing the A-10s at Myrtle Beach when we visited.  The A-10s have since left, an orphaned aircraft because the fly boys want to be cool and fly an aircraft that looks and sounds sexy.

Well, here is some news for the fly boys.  The F-35 sucks and costs too much, is too complicated, doesn’t work right, and everybody knows it.  The A-10 remains the greatest infantry support and armor attack aircraft ever devised by man.  Here is some good video of the aircraft in training.