A group of senators—including the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman—indicated they would oppose the Air Force’s plan to retire the A-10 Warthog, signaling that they will push for funding the aircraft in defense authorization bill deliberations next week.
“With the upcoming markup of the defense authorization [bill], we plan to ensure that the A-10 is preserved so that our men and women on the ground have the very best close air support capability because they deserve it,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said in a May 5 news conference. “There is no replacement right now for the A-10, and things have only gotten more dangerous around the world, and the need for continuing to have the A-10 there to support our troops now cannot be more apparent.”
The House Armed Services Committee last week approved their own version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which included funding to keep the A-10 flying and for new wings for the aircraft. The bill also incorporated language that prohibits its retirement. 
A group of Republican senators including Ayotte, SASC chairman John McCain (R-Ariz), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) expressed support of the A-10 and said they will follow in HASC’s footsteps when the Senate committee marks up its own version of the defense authorization bill next week.
Ayotte, whose husband is a former A-10 pilot, said she and her colleagues would make certain NDAA language is strong enough that the Air Force cannot diminish maintenance or push a “de-facto retirement” by putting the aircraft in backup status.
McCain told reporters after the briefing that increases in Overseas Contingency Operations funding agreed to by Senate and House Republicans will help free up money for the A-10.
Whether to divest the plane has been a contentious issue between Congress and Air Force leaders, who have said that the A-10 must be retired to free up funding for other budget priorities. Divesting the aircraft would save about $4.2 billion over five years, and other multi-mission aircraft—such as the F-35, F-16 and F-15E—can carry out the close air support missions that the A-10 was created to do, service officials have said.
The A-10 is the most perfect close air support system ever invented, said McCain, who pointed to its current use in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State.
“It still is really bewildering almost to me to see that the Air Force continues to advocate the elimination of the most important and single instrument of protecting our troops on the ground,” he said.
For joint terminal air controllers who are deployed with ground units to call in airstrikes, there is no replacement for the A-10, Charlie Keebaugh, president of the Tactical Air Control Party Association, said during the news conference. Not only are Warthogs better suited for the mission, the pilots have the training and experience needed to qualify as experts in close air support, whereas pilots of other platforms will be not as specialized.
“It takes a very trusted teammate on the other end of the radio, and you don’t find a better teammate in this industry than an A-10 pilot,” he said.
The aircraft is also well-suited for night missions because it is slow enough to pick out targets on the ground even when it is dark, said Tim Stamey, a retired Air Force master sergeant who spoke at the briefing.
Although Moody AFB, Ga., which supports two A-10 squadrons , is located in Isakson and Perdue’s home state of Georgia, that is only one of the reasons Isakson supports the plane, he said. Until there is a replacement capability for the A-10, it doesn’t make sense to divest the aircraft while they can still be used in the conflict against the Islamic State.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) issued a warning to the Air Force, who he said has made unreliable claims about the ability of other planes to replace the A-10. “If you don’t watch it, you’re going to ruin what’s left of your reputation on Capitol Hill,” he said.
Instead of retiring whole platforms as it has tried with the U-2 spy plane and A-10, the Pentagon should concentrate on reducing bureaucratic waste in the Office of the Secretary of Defense operational budget, Ayotte said. “We can’t continue growing the bureaucracy and cutting the tip of the spear.” Additionally, Congress needs to take action on addressing the mandatory spending limits imposed by the Budget Control Act so that the military doesn’t have to make such dramatic cuts.