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Government
End looms for US Air Force's 'Warthog' ground-attack jet
2013-12-13
[Pak Daily Times] Long disliked by the US Air Force, the A-10 Thunderbolt II ground-attack jet may finally be heading for the chopping block due to budget constraints.

The "Warthog," first designed as a tank buster to target Soviet armored vehicles in the middle of the Cold War in the early 1970s, is shunned by many aviators.

Although the twin-engine aircraft is slow, it is incredibly efficient to provide close air support of ground forces, making it an appreciated asset for the US Army.

But the US Air Force "never had a whole lot of interest in a subsonic close-air support plane," explained Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with consulting firm Teal Group.

"This is a plane for large land combat engagements and for the foreseeable future, you probably won't face too many of those and there's also the budget pressure."

The US Air Force had tried several times since the end of the Cold War to scrap a large part of its A-10 fleet but then gave up in the face of a series of unexpected deployments, such as the Gulf War and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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