Key Points and Summary on A-10 Warthog Retirement in 2026 – In a recurring “Groundhog Day” scenario, the U.S. Air Force is once again proposing to retire its entire fleet of A-10 “Warthog” attack aircraft.
-This time, however, the plan is more aggressive: the entire fleet of 162 A-10s is slated for retirement in fiscal year 2026, a significant acceleration from previous timelines.
-For years, Congress has intervened to save the beloved “tank killer,” but the current proposal is part of a much larger Air Force drawdown of 340 aircraft to cut costs and modernize.
-The key question is whether A-10 supporters in Congress will once again fight to keep the Warthog flying.
-Clearly, this is a problem the Air Force could never have thought up, as no one expected the A-10 to serve this long.
USAF’s Groundhog Day: Plans to Retire the A-10 Warthog
Q: What is the United States Air Force (USAF) version of the famous comedy film Groundhog Day?
A: When the USAF says it is going to retire the famous A-10 Warthog attack aircraft and tank killer.
The USAF’s retirement of the A-10 is a long-running soap opera that has been ongoing for years. The Air Force proposes a plan to retire the A-10, but Congress intervenes to save it from being sent to the boneyard. This chain of events has occurred at least five times since 2014.
According to the nonpartisan watchdog organization, the Project On Government Oversight, the plan to keep the aircraft on active duty was usually accomplished by Congress adding provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to either prohibit the USAF from retiring the aircraft or approve other projects to keep it in service.
In the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress finally permitted the retirement of 21 of the aircraft, marking the first retirements of any of these aircraft in the 21st century.
USAF officials have consistently denigrated the A-10, citing its slow maximum airspeed as a rationale for its retirement. They have also stated that the aircraft would be at a disadvantage in an air combat environment against a peer competitor, such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
A plan to finally put the A-10 out to pasture came in March 2023 when then-USAF Chief of Staff, Gen. Charles “C.Q.” Brown, told reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium that he expected all A-10s to be retired by 2028 or 2029.
“I would say over the next five or six years we will probably [have] the A-10 out of our inventory,” Brown told reporters at the time. “The A-10 is a great airplane. It’s a great airplane in an uncontested environment. The challenge is we’re going to be in more contested environments in the future.”
Early Retirement
Now, the USAF plans to retire the entire fleet of 162 A-10C jets in a single year, during fiscal year 2026. This time, the retirement of the aircraft is not based on any reasoning that calls the aircraft obsolete.
Instead, taking the A-10 out of active service is part of a rationalization plan that will retire some 340 different aircraft spread across several types.
This plan to decommission the A-10s has been included in the Pentagon’s 2026 budget proposal, which calls for significant changes to the USAF’s operational structure.
If Congress agrees to the USAF plan for these planned retirements, it would be the largest decommissioning, measured in terms of the number of aircraft, in years. The USAF stated earlier this year that, in response to a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to cut and reallocate approximately 8% of defense spending, the service would accelerate its plans to retire old and outdated aircraft.
The current plan to completely shut down the A-10 program amounts to a significant acceleration of the USAF’s previous timeline. Up to this point, USAF planning would have kept the A-10s in service until sometime at the end of this current decade.
During this time, a graduated set of retirements would have occurred over a period of 4-5 years, with the A-10s being withdrawn in batches until the entire fleet was relegated to the boneyard. This new decision to decommission all the A-10s within a year is the proverbial “cold turkey” solution, but it could potentially disrupt the USAF’s plan.
Lawmakers have previously been willing to retire limited numbers of the attack aircraft, and even then, these decisions were arrived at only after rancorous debates between the USAF and certain Members of Congress.
In most of these previous agreements, the two sides came to terms on the number of aircraft to be withdrawn from active inventory. However, the parties still remained bitterly divided over the future utility of the A-10. This latent loyalty to the aircraft, regardless of the circumstances, could cause some legislators to hold out to keep some of them flying.
In addition to the A-10s, the USAF also wants to retire 62 F-16Cs and Ds, 21 F-15Es, 13 F-15Cs and Ds, 14 C-130H Hercules cargo planes, and 3 EC-130H Compass Call electronic warfare planes.
In past years, defense officials in several nations have expressed interest in acquiring the aircraft if the USAF wants to discard them. Among others, NATO member Poland, Ukraine, the Kingdom of Jordan, and the Philippines have expressed their willingness to take them off the USAF’s hands. Where they will end up remains to be seen.
About the Author:
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs and Director of the Asian Research Centre with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
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Jim
July 2, 2025 at 1:13 pm
The U. S. faces two scenarios: low intensity non-peer combat situations and peer to peer military conflict.
The A-10 can be effective in non-peer situations depending on enemy surface to air ability in theater.
The A-10 may be obsolete for peer to peer conflict, but then again, numbers matter… airframes ready to fly matter.
And, what will replace the A-10?
I haven’t heard. Let’s have a replacement on the flight line before we scrap existing capability… even if it isn’t as exciting or beautiful as plans on a drawing board… but not yet built.