Much of the $4.2 billion the Air Force says it would save by retiring the A-10 attack fleet wouldn’t actually be saved, because it would come from personnel who would be shifted to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
In its fiscal 2016 budget, the Air Force estimates it would save $4.2 billion by retiring 164 of the attack aircraft, nicknamed the Warthog. The cuts would remove all A-10 active squadrons and cull 21 assigned to the Air National Guard.
While the Air Force would save money by not flying the retired aircraft, the personnel would not be cut. They would be moved to the F-35, the fifth-generation fighter that will come online in July after years of schedule delays and cost overruns. It is the most expensive acquisitions program in the Pentagon’s history, with the price tag for the anticipated 2,457 aircraft estimated to top $1.5 trillion.
Retiring the Warthogs “will allow the Air Force to repurpose A-10 maintenance personnel for use in F-35 aircraft maintenance units and in undermanned legacy fighter maintenance units,” the service said in its fiscal 2016 budget documents.
The effort to retire the A-10 has met consistent resistance in Congress, where lawmakers question the fiscal wisdom of shutting down an active aircraft that has been a valuable contributor in air operations against the Islamic State.
Defense Department Comptroller Mike McCord said that even though the workers would be moved to the F-35, the savings are real because they wouldn’t be spent on the A-10. McCord said operations and support costs make up just slightly more of the A-10’s budget than its personnel costs do.
“If the actual person maintaining this airplane today goes and maintains another airplane, the savings from the first airplane are still real,” McCord said. “They don’t depend one for one on whether the person then leaves the Air Force … or whether they go do something else that the Air Force needs done — the savings from not having this system are the same.”
However, defense experts disagree.
“Technically [the savings argument] might be correct,” said Larry Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan and current senior defense fellow at the Center for American Progress. “But it’s not savings — because if you take a look at this year’s budget they upped the number of F-35s.”
In its fiscal 2016 budget request, the Pentagon asked for $11 billion to buy 57 more F-35s, up from just two extra in the fiscal 2015 request.
The Air Force said it tabulated the savings by totaling the A-10’s projected personnel, operations and maintenance accounts over a five-year period, and is a reflection that “we simply do not have the budget to maintain today’s force structure and difficult choices need to be made,” said Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Karns.
Over the last few months, as it became apparent Congress would not allow the Air Force to cut the beloved A-10 from its fiscal 2015 request, the Air Force started to argue that any delays to shutting down the A-10s and moving workers to the F-35 program would result in further delays to the Joint Strike Fighters coming online.
“They need to get those people from somewhere,” McCord said. “If they don’t get them from the A-10, the requirement’s still there.”
Korb said the Air Force could consider tradeoffs to keep the effective attack aircraft, just as it has kept an even older workhorse that is also still active in the fight against the Islamic State, the B-52 long-range bomber.
“Keep the A-10 and buy less F-35s,” Korb said. “You make tradeoffs.”
