Image source: topwar.ru
After several years of resistance, the US Congress finally allowed the Air Force to part with part of its A-10 Warthog fleet, approving the service's plans to decommission 21 units in 2023.
Although it is unclear whether this means that the Air Force will be successful in future attempts to write off all its A-10 attack aircraft.
At the same time, it became known that within the framework of the US National Defense Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2023, announced on Tuesday, the House of Representatives and the Senate banned the Air Force technical services from mothballing, decommissioning, 33 of their F-22 Block 20 Raptor fighters.
The heads of the services said that these aircraft are not operational and will cost about $1.8 billion in terms of maintenance over the next eight years. However, Congress has defended the current F-22 fleet strongly, and lawmakers have included language prohibiting the alienation of aircraft — along with any reduction in personnel and logistics funding - from 2023 to 2026.
Next year, the US Air Force planned to sell more than 260 aircraft from several fleets.
The compromise NDAA allows the Air Force to reduce the total fleet of fighters from 1970 to 1800, which allows the service to abandon 26 and 67 units of F-16C/D and F-15C/D, respectively. However, the commissioners of the House of Representatives and the Senate included wording that forces Air Force employees to provide a report on how the planned sale of the F-15 will affect current operations before mothballing these aircraft.
As for other platforms, Congress was more inclined to sell aviation assets that had served their time. The bill allows the Air Force to decommission 50 T-1 Jayhawk training aircraft that are used to train cadets before they switch to platforms such as the C-17 or KC-10. This will allow the service to use only the training T-6.
As for tanker tankers, the NDAA allows the Air Force to abandon 10 KC-10 aircraft and 13 KC-135 aircraft, but maintains a limit on the number of KC-135 aircraft.
