House panel says nope on saving the A-10
Even as five SF soldiers were killed in a suspected blue-on-blue incident involving close air support by the supersonic B-1B bomber this week , the House Appropriations Committee, headed by Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, voted 23–13 against an amendment to the annual defense spending bill that would have preserved funding for the 283 USAF Cold War-era A-10 Warthog aircraft in fiscal 2015, which begins Oct. 1.
“Respectfully, let me stipulate at the onset that the A-10 Thunderbolt is a tremendous aircraft,” Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-New Jersey, who chairs the panel’s defense subcommittee, said before the vote. “It is, though, 30 to 40 years old … [and] close-air support is not the only mission the Air Force must be able to perform.”
In defending the decision to retire the A-10, Frelinghuysen said the F-16 fighter jet and the B-1 bomber can do what the A-10 does.
