U.S. Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ), the first female U.S. fighter pilot to fly in combat and a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, is rallying lawmakers to fund wing set replacements for 110 A-10 aircraft before the military is forced to ground the highly utilized planes.
Rep. McSally led a bipartisan, bicameral group of 20 lawmakers on Dec. 15 in writing a letter to House and Senate appropriations committee leaders urging them to re-wing the A-10 fleet in the final fiscal year 2018 funding legislation.
“The A-10 remains the only aircraft in the U.S. military specifically designed for Close Air Support (CAS) and combat search and rescue (CSAR). If one-third of the A-10 fleet were to be grounded, it would create a significant capability gap at a time when our service members are facing increasing threat environments,” lawmakers wrote in their letter urging full funding of the Air Force unfunded priority list item.
Currently, according to the members, the 110 aircraft (one-third of the A-10 fleet) urgently need wing set replacements to remain battle-tested and in the air. As one of the U.S. military’s most-utilized aircraft across multiple theaters, the aircraft has been “instrumental” to American contingency operations around the world, they wrote.
For instance, the A-10 Warthog aircraft as of Aug. 30 had dropped roughly 20 percent of all munitions — more than any other aircraft — in America’s fight against ISIS “and had flown 14 percent of all sorties deployed since counter-ISIS operations began in 2014,” according to the letter, which was sent to Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Vice Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) and Ranking Member Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY).
New wing sets are fully funded in the FY18 House and Senate National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA), the FY18 NDAA conference report, and the House-passed defense appropriations bill.
But Senate appropriators failed to include a re-winging requirement in their recent funding bill.
“Now that the Air Force has confirmed that it plans to maintain the A-10 fleet well into the foreseeable future, the remaining 110 wing sets must be delivered as soon as possible,” the lawmakers wrote.
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and U.S. Reps. Mike Turner (R-OH), Don Bacon (R-NE), and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) were among the 20 lawmakers, including McSally, who signed the letter.