The U.S. Air Force wants to retire the A-10 Warthog, an aircraft I have flown for years around the globe, by the end of the decade. While many may think all of us in the A-10 community want to hold onto our beloved mount for dear life, that isn’t necessarily the case.
What many of us do want is a suitable replacement, of which there is none currently planned. This new aircraft should be relatively economical while also bringing additional capabilities to the fight, especially one in the Pacific against China. That aircraft should be the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet for a slew of reasons, some of which may be surprising.
Why The Block III F/A-18E/F Makes Sense
The Block III Boeing Super Hornet — also lovingly nicknamed the ‘Rhino’ — is a true multi-role, twin-engine tactical fighter with advanced data link, Infrared Search and Track (IRST), AN/APG-79 Actively Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, and all in a 10,000-hour airframe. The Rhino is configured with robust landing gear for carrier-borne operations and a probe/drogue refueling system. It boasts 11 stations and serves as a threshold platform for future weapons. The Rhino is a 7.5G airplane with a maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and some reduced radar signature characteristics.
Why does that all matter?
In terms of looking for a replacement aircraft for the A-10C, the Rhino offers an airframe that can do much of what the A-10C does, particularly in a precision-guided munition employment sense. It offers similar loiter time, is able to fly at slower speeds when necessary, but can also fly much faster, making it more responsive when required — which is especially important when troops are in contact and air support is needed now. But the real plus of the Super Hornet is what additional capabilities it brings over the A-10C.
Super Hornets and A-10s taxi during a unique set of drills at Gowen Field in Boise, Idaho. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Preston Webb)
With the AN/APG-79 AESA, the Super Hornet has one of the world’s top performing radars, capable of tracking and employing weapons beyond visual range (BVR), producing high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) maps, and sharing data over advanced data links. The Rhino comes ‘standard’ with not only modern Link 16, but Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT) and Distributed Targeting Processor-Networked (DTP-N), both enhancing data throughput and enabling sensor fusion, making the Rhino one of the most capable and connected fighters on day one of any fight.
The addition of a centerline-mounted IRST pod gives the Rhino a long-range passive detect capability against even low observable (stealthy) aerial adversaries. It also has wide area cockpit displays to make the best of all this information.
The Super Hornet has also tested LITENING Targeting Pods, something A-10C pilots are very familiar with. Having the ability to view LITENING in color on the large area display would be a huge plus for air-to-ground (A/G) targeting pod work. The Kuwaiti Air Force has also made efforts to integrate SNIPER targeting pods. Both are good options with their own advantages.
The 7.5G limit of the aircraft conveniently aligns with the centrifuge profile that every A-10C pilot undergoes — no pilot converting from the A-10C to the F/A-18E/F would have to requalify in the centrifuge, saving time and money for the USAF.
The robust landing gear and tail hook, as well as the drogue refueling capability of the Rhino make it ideally suited for austere and forward operations in any theater, but especially the Pacific.
The first new-build Block III Super Hornet fresh off the line. (Boeing)
As a vignette, consider Super Hornets based forward, sitting Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) alert with HC-130s as part of an island hopping Agile Combat Employment (ACE) team. Super Hornets could take off with reduced fuel loads, maximizing short field performance, then refuel enroute to their operating location from the same HC-130s or other aerial refueling-equipped C-130 variants or MQ-25 drones below the radar horizon.
Even for standoff strike or anti-surface warfare, and other missions, a forward deployed aerial refueling equipped C-130 could immediately refuel the Super Hornet loaded with weapons once airborne to maximize its short field abilities and combat radius.
The Rhino can then recover after its mission with the help of its hook and a mobile arresting gear, making very short field operations not just more achievable, but also safer. This is something the Marines are increasingly training to do, leveraging their carrier-capable types’ unique short-field abilities — ones that Air Force aircraft lack, aside from for emergency purposes. These concepts already resonate with A-10C pilots as squadrons typically look for opportunities to perform landings on austere airfields (and is accomplished during each A-10 Weapons School class).
All of this would enable independent distributed operations closer to the forward edge, causing major issues for adversary calculus and opening up new, survivable tactical opportunities.
Seize The Day
The current geopolitical climate is one of great uncertainty. As a military and as a nation, we must take full advantage of the opportunities we have. The Super Hornet and its production line are one of those opportunities.
The Rhino’s blend of flight characteristics, weapons, sensors, and world class radar make it a force to be reckoned with – even for fifth generation aircraft. Above even that, it is the forward-operating tactical jet the Air Force is saying it needs without actually stating it. It simply can operate out of airfields existing USAF fighters cannot.
A-10s and a Super Hornet perform an overhead formation break after a sortie from Gowen Field. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Joshua C. Allmaras)
So, this is a rare case in which we have the right platform, whose development has already been paid for in full, with production capacity at our fingertips. It has proven combat capability, comparatively high-efficiency, is packed with updated technologies, and is serving in the multiple hundreds worldwide.
It is just sitting there ready to step into this new role.
Let’s keep the community of counter-land experts alive. Let’s invest in known-quantity production lines, and let’s bring the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to the U.S. Air Force.
Author Patrick “BURT” Brown is an Air Force weapons officer with more than 2,000 hours in the A-10C, 690 of which have been in combat in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He has served as an instructor at the USAF Weapons School, as well as abroad in the Office of the US National Military Representative (US NMR) to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) as the US liaison to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for air and space operations.
Top Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shannon Renfroe/U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Betty R. Chevalier (composite)