---
title: "We salute these mustachioed A-10s for making close air support classy AF"
description: "Sometimes, the traditional teeth-and-maw of the A-10 Warthog just doesn't cut it — you need a mustache to inspire fear"
date: "2020-03-18"
modified: "2020-03-18"
authors:
  - name: "Jared Keller"
    job_title: "Former Managing Editor"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/a10-warthog-mustache-paint/"
categories:
  - "Aircraft"
  - "Culture"
  - "Fighter Aircraft"
  - "Mandatory Fun"
  - "Tech & Tactics"
---

# We salute these mustachioed A-10s for making close air support classy AF

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/150327-f-cb366-053-1.jpg>)

In the annals of modern warfare, there are few sights more iconic than the traditional war paint of the A-10 Thunderbolt II. When coupled with the recognizable BRRRT! of the aircraft's massive 30mm GAU-8 Avenger autocannon, the razor-sharp teeth and gaping maw of a Warthog's nose become a sigil of death and destruction, the clearest sign to targets on the ground that they are irrevocably, inevitably, f\*cked.

But sometimes, the teeth-and-maw of the Warthog just doesn't cut it. Sometimes, to really inspire fear, you need a motherf\*cking mustache.

For the [A-10 Demonstration Team](<https://www.acc.af.mil/Home/Aerial-Events/A10DemoTeam/>) based out of Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, the standard paint job of the close attack aircraft is just another paint job, interchangeable with, say, [the classic scheme of the World War II-era P-51 Mustang](<https://taskandpurpose.com/news/a-10-wwii-paint-job/>), according to a Wednesday tweet from Air Combat Command:

https://twitter.com/USAF_ACC/status/1240295239866372096

To be clear, this isn't the first time an A-10 has rocked the distinctive mustache paint job in honor of Mustache March, a month-long holiday I had no idea existed. Here's then-Capt. Sean Westrick with the 25th Fighter Squadron posing with his aircraft for the occasion back in March 2014:

Then again, one doesn't aways require a faux holiday to add some facial hair to the A-10's nose. Here's an A-10 assigned to the 190th Fighter Squadron [rocking a mustache](<https://www.dvidshub.net/image/3841874/moonset>) from its 2016 deployment in support of Operation Inherent resolve:

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/1000w_q95-5-32.jpg>)

And then there's this bad boy from a Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst air show in New Jersey back in May 2018:

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/dcdlfe1xcampjkc-1-1.jpg>)

Here's to you, mustachioed A-10s: you're certainly making close air support a classy-ass affair, one cheeky paint job at a time.

.

## Author
Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

### Author social links  
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