The last A-10 in the Air Force will be retired in 2026, two years earlier than previously planned.
In priorities for its 2026 budget released this week, the Air Force asked Congress for permission and funding to move up the planned retirement of the beloved close support fighter to the 2026 fiscal year, which runs until October 1, 2026.
“The probably key one that most folks will want to be aware of is the Air Force will divest the remaining 162 A-10 aircraft,” a senior defense official told reporters Thursday during a briefing on the service’s 2026 budget request. “They were originally set to divest over a time period into ’28. We’re set to divest all of those in ’26.”
Retiring the planes two years early will cost $57 million, which the Air Force has requested for its next budget.
Though the service has no direct replacement for the A-10 as a dedicated close air support platform, leaders have frequently said the plane — which entered service in the 1970s — would have difficulty surviving in a modern, high-tech battlefield.
For nearly a decade, Air Force leaders have said the A-10 needed to be replaced as the service’s primary ground attack fighter. But many lawmakers, former pilots, and ground troops who recall A-10s turning the tide of fierce firefights have rallied to save the aircraft.
The Air Force has often pointed to the arrival of the F-35 as reducing the need for the A-10 fleet. But the new budget also cuts the number of those jets which carry fewer weapons than the A-10 and famously lack its GAU-8 Avenger 30 mm gun. Designed in the Cold War to destroy Russian tanks on European battlefields, the “brrrrrt” of the A-10’s cannon was a defining sound for many veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Air Force said it will ask for $3.1 billion for 21 F-15EX aircraft while reducing its F-35 procurement from 74 to 47 aircraft and will spend $3.4 billion developing the F-47, the next-generation air superiority fighter the service recently introduced.
Along with retiring all of its A-10s, the service also said it will mothball 36 older F-15s, including 21 F-15E Strike Eagles, the service’s other primary ground attack fighter. The service spokesperson also said that 62 F-16s and 15 KC-135 tankers will be among roughly 350 planes and helicopters the Air Force plans to retire next year, many of which are long-planned retirements of aging aircraft for newer replacements.
Big ticket new items across the defense department include $10.3 billion for the B-21 bomber, $11 billion for the Columbia-class submarine, $4.2 billion for Sentinel ICBMs and $2 billion for the SLCM-N, a sea-launched missile for the Navy.
The Air Force also asked for $3.4 billion to continue developing the F-47, the service’s recently announced next-generation fighter.
The latest on Task & Purpose
- Operation Midnight Hammer damaged, but may not have destroyed Iran’s nuclear sites
- An Army base will now honor a Buffalo Soldier
- 2 aircraft carriers, 9 destroyers, and multiple fighter wings gather in the Middle East
- Marines and sailors are building trenches for the drone age
- The Army is deactivating police units in deep cuts to number of military cops
