Air Force Extends A-10 Warthog Through 2030 After Combat Missions in Iran

The Air Force will keep the A-10 Thunderbolt II flying through 2030, extending the service life of an aircraft fleet the service had planned to completely retire by the end of fiscal year 2029.

Secretary of the Air Force Troy E. Meink announced the decision in an April 20 post on X. The reversal comes after consultations with President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and it comes just as the Pentagon prepares to release its fiscal 2027 spending request.

Combat Operations in Iran

"In consultation with [Hegseth], we will EXTEND the A-10 'Warthog' platform to 2030," Meink wrote, adding that the move "preserves combat power as the Defense Industrial Base works to increase combat aircraft production."

Hegseth reposted the announcement with his own four-word message, "Long live the Warthog."

“The Air Force plans to extend two squadrons of A-10s to 2030, one active-duty squadron at Moody AFB and one reserve squadron at Whiteman AFB," an Air Force spokesperson said. A second active-duty squadron at Moody will fly through 2029.

The service will use a fleet management strategy to keep the A-10s with the longest remaining serviceable life available throughout the extension.

The decision follows weeks of heavy A-10 activity in Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. campaign against Iran that escalated in late March. U.S. Central Command said Warthogs have been used to strike Iranian naval vessels near the Strait of Hormuz.

The jets also flew close air support in Iraq and Syria against Iran-backed fighters, letting more survivable platforms focus on targets inside Iran.

A-10s flew inside Iran itself during the April 3 combat search and rescue mission for the crew of an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down over Iranian territory.

At a White House briefing three days later, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Warthogs in the rescue operation were "violently suppressing and engaging the enemy in a close-in gunfight" to keep Iranian forces away from the downed pilot.

One of the A-10s was hit by enemy fire, flew to friendly airspace, and its pilot ejected safely after determining the aircraft could not be landed.

Despite facing retirement and the loss of an aircraft, the A-10 proved itself still capable of destroying enemy ground and naval targets in Iran while conducting close gun-runs against targets in other regions.

The A-10's service extension also follows months of congressional pressure. The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act barred the Air Force from reducing the A-10 fleet below 103 aircraft through September 2026 and required that 93 remain designated as primary mission aircraft. The service still operates 162 Warthogs.

Lawmakers also ordered Meink to brief Congress on a 2027 to 2029 transition plan, a briefing the service said it submitted in March.

Arizona politics have also shaped the fleet's survival. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson holds one of the largest concentrations of Warthogs as Sen. Mark Kelly led a 2021 push that blocked the Biden administration from retiring dozens of the jets.

The Cost of Keeping the Warthog

Continuing the use of A-10s will be increasingly difficult going forward. The Air Force has already started shutting down the logistics and training centers that keep the jet in the air.

The final class of A-10 pilots graduated on April 3 at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Heavy maintenance on the airframe at Hill Air Force Base in Utah was stopped earlier this year, while the maintenance squadron that handled the jets there was disbanded. The Air Force A-10 Demonstration Team even flew its final show in November 2024.

Air Force leaders have long argued that every dollar and mechanic spent on the Warthog is one not spent on the F-35A Lightning II, F-15EX Eagle II, B-21 Raider, or the upcoming F-47.

Aging wings, fuselage skin and flight controls are harder to maintain as spare parts grow scarce, while inspections require mechanics who could be working on newer jets. A multiyear re-winging program refitted 173 A-10s between 2011 and 2019, pushing the potential service life of those airframes into the late 2030s. Other sustainment work has not been funded on the same scale.

The case against the A-10 also hits at its survivability. The aircraft is slow and straight-winged, built to kill Soviet tanks at low altitude over a European battlefield. Air Force planners say it cannot survive in airspace defended by the integrated air defenses fielded by China or Russia.

The service still intends to move the close air support mission onto the F-35A and is asking to buy 38 of the new jets in fiscal 2027.

From Desert Storm to the Strait of Hormuz

The ground troops the A-10 has supported in combat operations over the last three decades have vocally disagreed with any attempt to retire it.

The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II was the first Air Force aircraft designed from the ground up for close air support. The prototype YA-10A first flew May 10, 1972, and the service declared initial operational capability in October 1977. Production ended in 1984 after 715 airframes had rolled out of the factory in Hagerstown, Maryland.

The aircraft's armament includes a General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger, a seven-barrel 30mm Gatling gun that fires 3,900 rounds per minute. A titanium shield weighing 1,200 pounds protects the pilot and internal systems. The engines are mounted high on the rear fuselage, protecting them from most ground fire. 

The jet can absorb hits from 23mm rounds and keep flying. It was even designed to launch from unpaved airstrips near the front line.

A-10s flying in the Middle East in recent weeks have been photographed carrying JDAM guided bombs, AGM-65 Maverick missiles, AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, and APKWS II laser-guided rockets alongside the infamous cannon.

A-10s flew their first combat sorties in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and were credited with destroying more than 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 other military vehicles, and 1,200 artillery pieces during the Gulf War air campaign. Six A-10s were lost.

Warthogs later flew over the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the campaign against the Islamic State.

Ground troops who called in or witnessed those sorties have spent decades describing the legendary sound of the gun, the sight of the jet flying low and slow overhead, as well as the practical reality that nothing else in the inventory puts down the same volume of fire as successfully as the A-10 does.

That bond is part of why the Warthog has survived every retirement plan since the year production ended. With American forces still conducting a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Meink's extension will keep the A-10 on standby, ready to carry out further strikes in the near future if needed.

What eventually replaces it in the years that follow remains an open question, though veterans who have witnessed the A-10 in action hope to see it flying well into the 2030s.