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How the HELL is the F-35 (JSF) supposed to replace the A-10 Thunderbolt?

NFS4

NFS4

No Lifer
I just don't get it. It's supposed to replace the F-16 and the A-10. The F-16, yeah, I can understand that. But the A-10??

The Air Force version of the F-35 will be the lightest of the three, but it is still a single-engine place. The A-10 is a twin-engine plane (for better survivability) with multiple hardpoints under the wings a massive gun up front for tearing apart tanks, and a hard as nails cockpit protection tub.

This plane doesn't look like it could handle the A-10's gun or requirements...but then again, I'm not the Air Force 😛

Excellent F-35 info
 
Well, for one I doubt that A-10 will be phased out anytime soon. We have plenty of aircraft in AF (and other branches) inventory that have served well for 30 years or more. I think in the long term Pentagon tries to predict the future face of conventional warfare and they are betting that JSF will fulfill all the needs. It's a gamble, but they just might be right.. or wrong..
 
The A-10 is basically a flying version of a tank. It may be slow but it can take a beating and keep going. The F-35, looks more like the F-16 than anything else and definately nothing like the A-10.
 
The F35 was for of an F-16 and Harrier replacement. It's hard to replace the A-10 since it was so good at what it did. And there was atleast one A-10 that had half of one of it's wings blown off by a SAM, had parts go THROUGH the engine, and still make it home (with a LOT of rudder input).

But that's what it was designed for.

Sometimes you need a scalpel, sometimes you need a sledgehammer.
 
The F35 was for of an F-16 and Harrier replacement. It's hard to replace the A-10 since it was so good at what it did. And there was atleast one A-10 that had half of one of it's wings blown off by a SAM, had parts go THROUGH the engine, and still make it home (with a LOT of rudder input).
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I remember a little peice that CNN did on some A-10's a couple weeks back that were flying missions in Iraq. These things had engines blown up, wings minced into bits, heavy damage to the cockpit, ect and the pilots still managed to land the plane without a scratch. Very facinating stuff.
 
Originally posted by: Hoober
Originally posted by: Dari
I'm no military buff but the A-10 looks like one of the remnants of the Second World War.
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Have you seen any aircraft from the second world war?
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Maybe he was referring to the hershey bar wing that you do not typically see on jets. I think the a-10 maybe ready for being phased out. It will take years before that happens anyway. But the a-10 is a slow flying plane and is very susceptible to anti-aircraft missiles and enemy fighters. The U.S. has enjoyed air superiority in our last few conflicts so this shortcoming is not very evident.

Since missile technology is so better why not create a very fast aircraft that can take out tanks just as well as the a-10. Plus you won't have environmentalists crying foul about the DU ammo. Sure the f-35 won't have an armored cockpit, but I don't think you will get too many shots at it when it destroys a tank from 20,000 feet and going 700mph with just as much accuracy.
 
Originally posted by: vi_edit
The F35 was for of an F-16 and Harrier replacement. It's hard to replace the A-10 since it was so good at what it did. And there was atleast one A-10 that had half of one of it's wings blown off by a SAM, had parts go THROUGH the engine, and still make it home (with a LOT of rudder input).
Click to expand...

I remember a little peice that CNN did on some A-10's a couple weeks back that were flying missions in Iraq. These things had engines blown up, wings minced into bits, heavy damage to the cockpit, ect and the pilots still managed to land the plane without a scratch. Very facinating stuff.
Click to expand...
The Plane was flown by a Women Pilot with the handle "Killer Chick" or "KC" for short from my Hometown of San Jose. Man I knew women there were tough but I had no idea how tough!

 
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
The F35 was for of an F-16 and Harrier replacement. It's hard to replace the A-10 since it was so good at what it did. And there was atleast one A-10 that had half of one of it's wings blown off by a SAM, had parts go THROUGH the engine, and still make it home (with a LOT of rudder input).

But that's what it was designed for.

Sometimes you need a scalpel, sometimes you need a sledgehammer.
Click to expand...

The F-35 is more than an F-16/Harrier replacement.

F-35A replaces F-16 & A-10
F-35B replaces AV8B Harrier
F-35C replaces F/A-18C
 
The Plane was flown by a Women Pilot with the handle "Killer Chick" or "KC" for short from my Hometown of San Jose. Man I knew women there were tough but I had no idea how tough!
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If I remember correctly, there was one of them got shot down but the pilot(I'm guessing the woman you were talking about) ejected safely. The others took some pretty serious damage but the pilots were able to safely land them.
 
The A-10 had already been slated for the grave in the early 90's, but the great results in the first Gulf War and now again in Afghanistan and Iraq have extended it's life.

Great plane by the way.
 
Originally posted by: rudder
But the a-10 is a slow flying plane and is very susceptible to anti-aircraft missiles and enemy fighters. The U.S. has enjoyed air superiority in our last few conflicts so this shortcoming is not very evident.

Since missile technology is so better why not create a very fast aircraft that can take out tanks just as well as the a-10. Plus you won't have environmentalists crying foul about the DU ammo. Sure the f-35 won't have an armored cockpit, but I don't think you will get too many shots at it when it destroys a tank from 20,000 feet and going 700mph with just as much accuracy.
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The A-10's role is *close air support*. As such, it needs to be slow flying. Helicopters are also used for this mission. They tried to use F-16's in the first Gulf War for this mission, and it was found that the aircraft simply moved too fast and was too fragile for the task. So the ideas of replacing the A-10 with the F-16 were thrown in the garbage.
 
Originally posted by: NFS4
I just don't get it. It's supposed to replace the F-16 and the A-10. The F-16, yeah, I can understand that. But the A-10??
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The original requirements of the JSF was that it was going to replace a broad range of aircraft with a few derivatives of the JSF.


The idea of replacing the A-10 with the JSF in the immediate future has been done away with. The A-10 is now set to keep flying for another 25 years, until 2028.

"The original service life of the A/OA-10 was 8,000 hours, equating to approximately to FY2005. The revised service life was projected out to 12,000 hours, equating to approximately FY2016. The most recent long range plan has the A/OA-10 in the fleet through FY2028, which equates to approximately 18,000-24,000 hours

I got this information from the same website that had the info about the JSF, btw.
look
 
The Warthog has a 30MM volcun canon, I do not think the JSF can handle that gun and I do not think it can hold half the payload either. Just remember, the F-14, 15, and 16 were supposed to be taken over 5 years ago and they still have not replacement.
 
Yeah... I think the JSF project, as a whole, has "bitten off more than it can chew", so to say. The JSF is a wonderful airplane--but its very difficult to make a bunch of VERY different people happy with a single airframe (or "variations" of similar airframes). How could the F14 and the A10 be replaced by nearly the same plane? 🙂

The engine, from what I hear, is up to a mighty difficult task.... they're also attempting to use the same engine in pretty much all the variants. I've heard (from reasonably reliable sources) that the engine, while very well suited to some missions, is very inefficient in others.
 
Originally posted by: rudder

Since missile technology is so better why not create a very fast aircraft that can take out tanks just as well as the a-10. Plus you won't have environmentalists crying foul about the DU ammo. Sure the f-35 won't have an armored cockpit, but I don't think you will get too many shots at it when it destroys a tank from 20,000 feet and going 700mph with just as much accuracy.
Click to expand...

I'm going to reply to this again because I want to address something.

The role of close air support requires the aircraft to loiter around for a while near the troops. The aircraft has to "hang around" for quite a while at low altitudes so it can see the tanks or enemy forces. You're not going to see much at 20,000 feet and 700 mph.

So the aircraft that has this job needs to fly slow, low, and for long periods of time. That's why they use slow flying aircraft and helicopters.

Besides, no aircraft can outfly a missile. Iraq was easy because they didn't have many effective missiles, but take a look at what our patriots did when they were accidentally fired at friendly aircraft. With the advent of accurate surface to air missiles, an aircraft is now at more risk at 20,000 feet than it is at lower altitudes. For this reason, the US air force changed the roles of its bombers. The B-52 used to be mainly a high altitude bomber, but now its official mission is a low altitude bomber. The B-1 was originally a supersonic high altitude bomber, but then was cancelled and brought back as a subsonic low altitude penetration bomber called the B-1b.

At low altitude you have to worry about getting hit by small arms fire, while at higher altitudes you need to worry about getting hit by missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. So either way you're in harm's way. And for the role of close air support, you're still in harms way at 20,000 feet but you can no longer effectively do your mission.
 
"A jack of all trades is a master of none"


The A-10 is a very specialized aircraft that just does its job too well to be replaced by an "all purpose" aircraft. That's why it's NOT going to be replaced, and will continue its mission until 2028.


I think the title of this thread is invalid since the plans of replacing the A-10 with the F-16/JSF were scrapped a few years ago.
 
Originally posted by: Marshallj
Originally posted by: rudder

Since missile technology is so better why not create a very fast aircraft that can take out tanks just as well as the a-10. Plus you won't have environmentalists crying foul about the DU ammo. Sure the f-35 won't have an armored cockpit, but I don't think you will get too many shots at it when it destroys a tank from 20,000 feet and going 700mph with just as much accuracy.
Click to expand...

I'm going to reply to this again because I want to address something.

The role of close air support requires the aircraft to loiter around for a while near the troops. The aircraft has to "hang around" for quite a while at low altitudes so it can see the tanks or enemy forces. You're not going to see much at 20,000 feet and 700 mph.

So the aircraft that has this job needs to fly slow, low, and for long periods of time. That's why they use slow flying aircraft and helicopters.

Besides, no aircraft can outfly a missile. Iraq was easy because they didn't have many effective missiles, but take a look at what our patriots did when they were accidentally fired at friendly aircraft. With the advent of accurate surface to air missiles, an aircraft is now at more risk at 20,000 feet than it is at lower altitudes. For this reason, the US air force changed the roles of its bombers. The B-52 used to be mainly a high altitude bomber, but now its official mission is a low altitude bomber. The B-1 was originally a supersonic high altitude bomber, but then was cancelled and brought back as a subsonic low altitude penetration bomber called the B-1b.

At low altitude you have to worry about getting hit by small arms fire, while at higher altitudes you need to worry about getting hit by missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. So either way you're in harm's way. And for the role of close air support, you're still in harms way at 20,000 feet but you can no longer effectively do your mission.
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if you want CAS, use apache's. It may not have that gun, but it has missles that can do the job against tanks. And it's probably better suited for CAS in that it's gun can shoot better in multiple directions which is useful for mowing down enemy troops.
 
Originally posted by: HokieESM
The engine, from what I hear, is up to a mighty difficult task.... they're also attempting to use the same engine in pretty much all the variants. I've heard (from reasonably reliable sources) that the engine, while very well suited to some missions, is very inefficient in others.
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Yup, and in addition, when an A-10 pilot gets an engine shot out, they know it's time to return to base. When a JSF engine gets shot out, it's time to eject wherever you're at because you just lost THE engine...

Getting hit in the engine is very common since many SAMs are heat seeking. It's hard to avoid it, it's going to happen. I've heard of a couple A-10's in this war get hit in an engine, and also a couple of Apaches was hit in an engine also. But since these aircraft have 2 engines, they were able to return to base.

 
Originally posted by: AmigaMan
[if you want CAS, use apache's. It may not have that gun, but it has missles that can do the job against tanks. And it's probably better suited for CAS in that it's gun can shoot better in multiple directions which is useful for mowing down enemy troops.
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They use A-10's for a reason. Helicopters don't carry anywhere NEAR the load the an A-10 carries, not even close. Look up the specs... not only can an A-10 carry more weapon load than an Apache, but it can carry more than the fully loaded Apache weighs itself.

An Apache weighs 11,800 pounds empty, and 15,075 loaded for a mission.

An A-10 can carry 16,000 lbs just of ordinance... and weighs 51,000 lbs fully loaded. The scales of these aircraft are completely different. Helicopters are relatively light and fragile aircraft. The A-10 is not. When it's too dangerous for the Apache, you bring in the A-10.
 
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