Air Force chief wants a ‘flying Coke machine’ to replace A-10

Welsh lobbied for a versatile troop support aircraft that delivers on-demand firepower at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. “Imagine … having a Coke machine overhead, and you put your quarter in and you get whatever kind of firepower you want, when you want it,” Welsh said. “In the perfect world, that’s close-air support of the future.”

The new aircraft would need to operate only in low- to medium-threat areas as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Welsh. “It’s flying artillery” and “911 rockets.” The main goal is to create an effective platform that can loiter above a battlefield as well as minimize operational and maintenance costs.

He anticipates the new plane would cost $4,000-5,000 per hour to fly versus $20,000 per hour in the A-10.

Welsh said the Air Force would need to think through the options. “Is it manned, is it unmanned? … Is it a number of smaller things that arrive and deliver weapons [or] is it one big thing that orbits?” Welsh said.

Regardless of the platform, the concept is “firepower now.”

The White House and Pentagon want to retire the revered close-air-support platform over budget constraints and investments into new platforms. Yet, Congress has kept the A-10 in service.

Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., a former Air Force colonel whose district includes Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, home to the A-10, is a huge proponent of keeping the Warthog fully funded to avoid a “capability gap,” something that would occur if the A-10 were taken out of service before a replacement was made.

With the Air Force’s F-35 joint strike fighter, KC-46 tanker and the B-21 long-range strike bomber, building a Warthog replacement is “not the highest priority,” Welsh said.

The chief would love to build a new A-10 now but “we just don’t have the money to do it and we don’t have the people to keep flying the A-10 and build a new airplane.”