Why DOES the Air Force want to get rid of the A-10?
Because it's not fast and sexy.... Even more so, because it does not require a multi billion $$ development program with billions more in logistical tail.
In my career, I've flown H-60's doing rescue, and later C-17's. I've participated in multiple large force excercises, and several deployments. I've never been a ground pounder.
In -60's, we operated with A-10's, Apaches, F-16's and OH-58's in varying degrees as our "rescort." - The Sandy misson where the Hawks do the pickup, and the armed AC clear the way, and protect the Hawks during the run in and pickup.
The A-10's were by far the best. They were fast enough to daisy chain around us and scout ahead, but slow and low enough to keep eyeballs on us. The F-16's were almost useless. They had no time, they were too high and too fast to see us, and they couldn't engage pop up targets fast enough. The Apaches and 58's were less than useless. They flew slower than us, and couldn't scout ahead without us running racetracks.
I disagree with most posts here. I would LOVE the AF to pick up light attack. Why? Because the A-10 is not coming back into production. It just isn't for too many logistical reasons. Light Attack can't replace the A-10, nor should it. What we then have is a huge gap between the F-35 and the AH-64. Light Attack AT-6's cost less to buy, and less to operate than the Apache. They have longer loiter time, and can react faster to a TIC call (troops in contact). They are more able to evade manpads than AH-64's.
Very importantly, there's a finite number of hours available on an airframe. These low intensity wars we've been fighting have eaten up a lot of hours on the A-10's, F-16's and B-1's. Cheap light airframes can fill a big gap and keep the hours off of our WW3 planes.
Why do they have two seats? Because the airframe is designed for 2 seats. The T-6 Texan II trainer is the base airframe. It would acutally cost more to redesign it for singe seat. Also, the weight is negligible. It can carry 4,000 lbs of stuff... break that down in gas, people and weapons. A 200lb guy isn't that much in the grand scheme of things. I also kind of doubt that the AF would actually carry 2 people on most missions (the Apache needs 2 BTW).
