DescentBB

The A-10 Warthog is the premier airframe to loiter over a battlefield and cause massive damage to tanks and convoy's. The problem is it is getting old and is planned to be phased out in 2022 ( note it was planned on being scrapped once but was found to be the only aircraft to do the type work it does. So the conundrum is what do you replace it with? And thus my title. Do a little research and let us know what you think.

The great thing about this problem is that the current solution, replacing the A10 with the F35, is incredibly expensive and you lose mission capability. That means theres a lot of room to grow capability and reduce price compared to the F35.

First, a refurb/upgrade program for the A10 to extend the lifespan. There are 350 or so A-10's. You can spend 10 million on each one refurbishing and upgrading, and still spend less than the cost of 20 new F35's. ($200mil/each) 350 A-10's vs 20 less capable F35's. I know this is simplistic napkin math, but there's a lot of room for error to still end up in the black.

Second, even with refurb/upgrades, A-10's won't last forever. Commission a new purpose built close air support plane. It doesn't have to be a technological wonder. It doesn't need stealth. It doesn't need a variants that land on carriers or do VTOL or do air superiority. It just needs to be survivable, and carry enough fuel and munitions to be able to loiter over a battlefield. We solved this problem 40 years ago with the A-10.

Of course, all of this would be money diverted from the F35. Fewer F35's mean the price for each remaining goes up. But if spending money on R/D to shoehorn the F35 into a less capable close air support platform was a mistake, the solution isn't to spend even more money actually building the less capable close air support plane.

I'd think if nothing can replace the A-10, then perhaps it is time to revisit the design with the goal of building a new variant of it which will be sustainable for another ~40 years.

Drones

Spidey wrote:Drones

Personally, I think anything that fires a weapon should be locally manned. I think a pilot should be placed at risk as a deterrent to sending up the pilot at all. It keeps the cost of war high. This can be twisted to suggest I want American combatants harmed, and in a way, I agree. But when technology gets to the point where all of our forces can be remotely controlled, when the cost is no longer our family or neighbors but just abstract dollars, what is the counterbalance to war?

Of course, our enemies might not always agree with that high minded bulls!t.

Kind of like this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon

Lol, Vander, that assumes most armies don’t consider soldiers expendable in the first place.

At least the US has a motto…let the other bastard die for his country.

But I do understand your reasoning, just don’t agree.

Vander wrote:But when technology gets to the point where all of our forces can be remotely controlled, when the cost is no longer our family or neighbors but just abstract dollars, what is the counterbalance to war?

This morning I read about a new AI that can outfight the best human pilots and is lightweight enough to run on a Rasp PI. The first thing I thought was "whelp, no more need for pilots."

Drones sound like a good idea, but they're too slow in response time. The F35, while a jack-of-all-trades type of aircraft is really a master of none. That's out. The F22 is just too fast.

So now we're down to designing one from the ground up.

It needs to cover six areas, in my opinion.

Armament, survivability, flight envelope, fuel efficiency, serviceability and pilot friendliness.

Armament is covered by either the current GAU-8 avenger, or an improved version of the avenger, in the same spot as before, right down the centre of the aircraft and a little higher than previously, for better sighting capability. It should also be able to carry ordinance in the fuselage so that if the wings do get shot to ★■◆●, the ordinance isn't in risk of being dislodged. The F22 has this idea implemented well, so they could draw from that.

Survivability should be covered primarily by stealth for an undetected approach. Since most of the threats from the ground would be either flak, small arms, or surface-to-air missiles, this could be countered with a lightweight version of composite armor akin to the composite armor of the M1A2, and the use of active ECM to either disable or disorient the smarter IR seeking warheads or radar guided warheads.

Flight envelope should be taken care of by a wing specifically designed for low speeds and be capable of high speeds. So the ideal wing would be one with a large wing area to reduce stall speeds as much as possible with a given weight. Low stall speeds stretches out your fuel for long loiter times and reduces takeoff and landing distances.

Fuel efficiency would be realized by a high thrust and low consumption engine, and that's where a a propfan comes in. Given the right blade geometry, a propfan could be both quiet and produce enough thrust to get to a battlefield quickly without depleting the tank in two hours. A system with a full tank of fuel would have to run for six hours or more at subsonic speeds.

Serviceability is something to be considered aswell, so the construction would have to be simple with as few fasteners as possible. The faster an aircraft can be repaired, the faster it can return to the air.

Pilot friendliness has to be considered aswell. A large bubble up top would make it feel awkward and unwieldy. A great aircraft cockpit was the P51, where the fuselage at the pilot position was so thin, you could almost look straight down and see what was going on. Add in a slight bank and you would see right below yourself perfectly.

Spidey wrote:Lol, Vander, that assumes most armies don’t consider soldiers expendable in the first place.

It's hardly a fully formed thought. There are so many implications involved even before considering the opponent. It's more just a worry that the human burdens of war will be reduced so as to make war more of an option.

So yeah, I'm a proponent of manned fighter aircraft over unmanned. I want to put people in harms way if war is necessary.

vision wrote:

Vander wrote:But when technology gets to the point where all of our forces can be remotely controlled, when the cost is no longer our family or neighbors but just abstract dollars, what is the counterbalance to war?

This morning I read about a new AI that can outfight the best human pilots and is lightweight enough to run on a Rasp PI. The first thing I thought was "whelp, no more need for pilots."

Except vision, for the fact that a premier drone was hacked and forced to land in Iran. I'm kinda with Vander on this. If we (or any nation) go all drone then the morality of going to war is diminished. Can you program a moral code into a AI drone?

Vander wrote:The great thing about this problem is that the current solution, replacing the A10 with the F35, is incredibly expensive and you lose mission capability. That means theres a lot of room to grow capability and reduce price compared to the F35.

First, a refurb/upgrade program for the A10 to extend the lifespan. There are 350 or so A-10's. You can spend 10 million on each one refurbishing and upgrading, and still spend less than the cost of 20 new F35's. ($200mil/each) 350 A-10's vs 20 less capable F35's. I know this is simplistic napkin math, but there's a lot of room for error to still end up in the black.

Second, even with refurb/upgrades, A-10's won't last forever. Commission a new purpose built close air support plane. It doesn't have to be a technological wonder. It doesn't need stealth. It doesn't need a variants that land on carriers or do VTOL or do air superiority. It just needs to be survivable, and carry enough fuel and munitions to be able to loiter over a battlefield. We solved this problem 40 years ago with the A-10.



Of course, all of this would be money diverted from the F35. Fewer F35's mean the price for each remaining goes up. But if spending money on R/D to shoehorn the F35 into a less capable close air support platform was a mistake, the solution isn't to spend even more money actually building the less capable close air support plane.

Now if the A-10's air frame is becoming stress fractured then why can it not be upgraded such as new avionics or armaments? Lets remember how long the B-52 has been in service. Why? Because the B-52 platform cannot be built without incurring huge costs. As you point out Vander, the cost of a F-35 far exceeds the cost of a A-10 upgrade and would reduce the number of available planes. The A-10 is a niche aircraft that so far no other plane can match.

As a aside the F-35, after about 15 years of development, is still not ready
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/03/1 ... Until-2022

It's not a question of armament or avionics; it's a question of structural rigidity. As metal ages, it starts to fatigue. And that process is accelerated when high g loads and vibration are placed on a wing and fuselage

It would have to be redesigned to utilize modern-day composites, and vibration dampening would have to be considered.

Yep, airframes have a finite lifespan. They need to be replaced not because of out of date technology, but simple metal fatigue. There are ways to mitigate it, and extend the life, but father time is undefeated.