In budget docs, Air Force again pushes to retire A-10

The Air Force again unveiled plans Monday to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt as part of its proposed budget for the coming year.

The Warthog, as it’s also known, faces the ax as a way to save money under all the service’s budget scenarios, but the Air Force warned that the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone and the procurement of the F-35 Lightning II aircraft, among other key initiatives, are being threatened by a potential cap on defense spending.

However, the Air Force’s $167.3 billion budget plan largely sidesteps impending cuts and instead proposes moderate hikes in spending and manpower, which the service says are necessary to recover from sequestration reductions in fiscal 2013 that pinched operations and reduced readiness to its lowest levels since the early 1980s.

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