Congresswoman McSally's amendment to increase funding for the A-10 wing replacement program was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday.
The amendment increases the total amount of funding to $144 million, which will allow for the re-winging of 14-20 planes.
Three years ago, when I first came to Congress I began the fight against the Obama administration and their plan to mothball the entire A-10 Warthog fleet. This is an airplane I flew and commanded in combat - I know a little bit about it and we won that fight, said Congresswoman McSally. Since then, the Warthog has continued to be deployed to multiple combat theaters, in some of the most contested environments around the globe. If we only appropriate the base request currently included in the bill we will only secure enough funding to re-wing somewhere between 12-16 aircrafts. At that rate it could take nearly a decade to re-wing the remaining 109 A-10s. That’s not fast enough. These missions are happening now. We are literally flying the wings off these airplanes and our enemies won’t wait.
As of right now, there are 109 A-10's of the 281 that still need new wings.
