Congressional efforts to keep the A-10 Thunderbolt in service appeared to win out earlier this year, when the well-known aircraft was included in the fiscal year 2018 budget.
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Congress insisted the Air Force keep the A-10, so now the Air Force wants Congress to pay up
The Air Force is asking Congress for additional funds to keep all 283 of its A-10 Thunderbolts in service.
US Air Force members work on an electronic error on an A-10 Thunderbolt on the flight line at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, April 25, 2007.
Rep. Martha McSally and Sen. John McCain had pushed back on Air Force plans to retire the A-10, and issues with the F-35 as well as the Thunderbolt's primacy in close-air-support operations helped keep it on the flight line.
Now the Air Force is looking to Congress for funds to keep all 283 of its A-10s in flying condition.
While the service has funds to upgrade 173 of its A-10s with new wings, it doesn't have money to replace wings for the remaining 110, and some 40 of its A-10s would be grounded by 2021 if the needed money is not made available, an Air Force spokeswoman told CNN.
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The service has included a $103 million request among its unfunded requirements in order to cover the costs of the new wings.
Boeing, which made wings for the A-10, has shut down production of them, and the $103 million request — plus $20 million from this fiscal year — would go to starting a new plant line and to making wings, according to CNN.
The inclusion of the $103 million request among the USAF's unfunded requirements is likely a bit of budgetary gamesmanship on the part of the Air Force, defense experts told CNN.
Given the A-10's popularity among elected officials, airmen, and troops, it was likely to get funding no matter what, so Air Force officials excluded it from their budget request in hopes Congress would add money for it later.
In spite of that operational need however, the Air Force appears to still be looking to deactivate some of its Thunderbolts, which became a point of contention on Capital Hill this month.
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