The U.S. Air Force has so far been able to avoid grounding dozens of its A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft that are still waiting for vital replacement wings. Unfortunately, serious questions remain about how long the service will be able to keep the entire fleet active, and whether it even really plans to, despite what had appeared to be increasing support from senior officials. During a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee on April 12, 2018, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Jerry Harris, the service’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans, Programs, and Requirements, offered new information about the state of the A-10s. We at The War Zone had separately reached out for additional updates regarding groundings across the fleet, which includes aircraft assigned to active and reserve component units in the Air Force Reserves and Air National Guard.

As of April 2018, “zero active or reserve component A-10s are grounded for a lack of serviceable wings,” the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Fighter Bomber Directorate, which oversees the A-10 program, told The War Zone in a statement by Email. “The Air Force has used a collaborative approach between AFMC [Air Force Materiel Command] and the Using Commands and their units to alleviate groundings in [fiscal year 2018].” The A-10 re-winging program is a saga we at The War Zone have delved into many times in the past, but it’s safe to say that it was an unforced error on the part of the Air Force. Despite initial plans in 2007 to upgrade all of its approximately 280 aircraft with new “thick” wings, the service stopped after a little more than 170 had received the modifications.

USAF An Air Force Reserve A-10 Warthog on display.

Now, nearly 110 Warthogs continue to lack the new wings, which could keep them airworthy into the 2030s. In September 2017, U.S. Air Force General Ellen Pawlikowski, head of Air Force Materiel Command, said some of those aircraft could end up stuck on the ground for safety reasons by the beginning of the 2018 fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2017. At the time of writing, the Air Force has not yet responded to our request for clarification as to what the collaborative approach it is using to avoid those groundings entails. However, at the hearing, Harris said that A-10s that were getting close to becoming unsafe to fly would rotate into the service’s backup inventory. We also do not know an approximate number of A-10s that are classified as “not mission capable” because they are undergoing depot maintenance, receiving upgrades or modifications, are broken down at a deployed location overseas. We do know that beyond the wing issue, no Warthogs were grounded for any reason as of April 2018.

USAF An A-10 undergoing heavy maintenance.