{"id":137856,"date":"2023-03-01T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=137856"},"modified":"2023-02-28T17:33:37","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T22:33:37","slug":"air-force-selling-out-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=137856","title":{"rendered":"Air Force selling out Army"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Capt Taylor Bye, A-10 pilot extraordinaire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Far be it from me to stir up an inter-service brouhaha, but in this case the headline wrote itself. Pesky damn headlines. The Air Force’s deepest, most unrequited long-desired dream – dumping the A-10s the Army depends on – is finally starting to come true.<\/p>\n

We all knew the Ar Force insisted that the F-35 can do close air support just as well as the A-10 does. After all, it’s the most lethal airplane in existence, they say, and do anything, they say, and is worth all those billions, they say. That it can’t loiter more than a couple of minutes is no big deal, they say. Or that it carries less than 20% of the ammo of an A-10 doesn’t matter, they say. It’s the wunderflugzeug of the 21st century!<\/p>\n

Well, the dirty little secret is out.<\/p>\n

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At a Senate hearing<\/a> in 2016, Michael Gilmore …\u00a0 “On page 2, it says the F-35A will rely primarily upon the F-22 for air superiority and will assume the current F-16 role as the low end of the USAF high-low fighter mix strategy and the A-10 role,”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nice – apparently an F-35 needs an F-22 to protect itself? But, in the immortal words of St. Ron Popeil: “But wait, there’s more! ”<\/p>\n

However, according to the Project on Government Oversight, a non-partisan watchdog group, the Air Force seems to be de-emphasizing close-air-support training for F-35 pilots.<\/p>\n

Although other US military branches also conduct close-air-support missions with other aircraft, none of them have specialized platforms like the A-10, and the Air Force is the only branch specifically assigned to “furnish close combat and logistical air support” to the Army.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to POGO, the Air Force characterized close air support as a secondary mission for F-35 pilots across its active duty, National Guard, and reserve components, meaning they have to be familiar but not proficient with it.<\/p>\n

Further, according to the Air Force’s most recent F-35 training memorandum, which was issued in October and applies to training in 2023 and 2024, F-35 pilots are not required to fly any actual or simulated CAS training missions.<\/p>\n

“Just to drive home the point: No F-35 pilot of any experience level in any component of the Air Force is required to fly a single close air support training mission in 2023 or 2024<\/strong><\/em>,” Dan Grazier, senior defense policy fellow for POGO, wrote in the report. (Emphasis added – Ed.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Business Insider<\/a><\/p>\n

The Air Force is acting like a petulant child: they don’t want the A-10, but let the Army try to take the program over, and the Air Force would stamp its widdle feetsies and probably pee on the floor. Guess we have to hope some of the existing pilots remember their training, as it sure looks like the Air Force is intent on aging that particular skill set out of existence. Nice double dealing, AF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Far be it from me to stir up an inter-service brouhaha, but in this case the … Air Force selling out Army<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,220,187,359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teh-stoopid","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-air-force","category-army"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}