The U.S. Air Force marked the departure of the last A-10 Thunderbolt II maintained at Hill Air Force Base in Utah in February 2026, sending off an aircraft that has served as a signature low-altitude ground-attack jet for decades. The sendoff closed a chapter for the base’s maintenance workforce and underscored the Air Force’s push to shift resources toward newer aircraft. But congressional restrictions on how fast the Air Force can shed its remaining A-10 fleet add friction to a transition the Pentagon has sought for years.
Final Warthog Leaves Hill AFB
The aircraft that rolled out of Hill Air Force Base for the last time carried tail number 78-0655, the final A-10 maintained by the Ogden Air Logistics Complex’s 571st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. That unit had been responsible for depot-level overhauls and structural repairs that kept aging Warthogs flying well past their original service life. With no more A-10s cycling through the 571st’s hangars, the squadron’s mission profile will shift toward other airframes already in the Hill AFB portfolio, though the Air Force has not publicly detailed workforce reassignment plans.
The Feb. 12 ceremony drew personnel who had spent careers keeping the twin-engine, titanium-bathtub jet in fighting shape. The A-10 earned its reputation in the 1991 Gulf War and later in Iraq and Afghanistan, where its GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon and ability to loiter at low altitude made it the preferred platform for troops requesting close air support. Ending A-10 depot maintenance work at Hill AFB does not mean every A-10 in the fleet has been grounded, but it does mean one major depot line that supported the airframe is no longer processing the jet. What that means for long-term fleet availability will depend on how remaining depot capacity and unit-level maintenance are managed as retirements proceed.
Congress Keeps a Leash on Retirement Plans
The Air Force cannot simply park its Warthogs in the Arizona desert on its own schedule. Under Section 143 of the National Defense Authorization Act, titled “Modification to minimum inventory requirement for A-10 aircraft,” the service is subject to conditions that govern how A-10 divestments can proceed. The provision requires the Air Force to deliver detailed briefings to congressional defense committees and maintain minimum inventory thresholds before any additional retirements can proceed. The provision ties the requirements to a timeline that runs through Sept. 30, 2026, giving lawmakers a defined window to review how the Air Force plans to replace A-10 capacity.
This legislative guardrail reflects a long-running tug of war between Air Force leadership, which has argued the A-10 is too vulnerable against modern air defenses, and members of Congress who represent bases with A-10 units or who worry about a gap in ground-support capability. The briefing and inventory reporting requirements written into the law are not ceremonial. They force the Pentagon to justify each step of the drawdown with specific data on what replaces the Warthog’s mission set, rather than offering vague assurances about next-generation platforms. Until Sept. 30, 2026, the Air Force’s ability to retire additional A-10s is shaped by the briefing and inventory requirements described in the provision, giving Congress continued oversight of the pace and conditions of divestment.
Why the Air Force Wants to Move On
The service’s push to retire the A-10 is driven by a straightforward resource calculation. Every dollar spent sustaining a 1970s-era airframe is a dollar not available for the F-35 Lightning II or other advanced platforms the Air Force considers better suited for a potential conflict with a technologically capable adversary. The Warthog was designed to destroy Soviet tank columns on the plains of Central Europe. That mission still exists in theory, but the threat environment has changed. Modern integrated air defense systems fielded by peer competitors can target slow, low-flying aircraft with far greater precision than the Soviet-era systems the A-10 was built to survive, raising questions about whether it could survive long enough to employ its weapons in a high-end fight.
Yet the counterargument has real weight. No other aircraft in the U.S. inventory carries the same combination of loiter time, cannon firepower, and survivability against small-arms fire that made the A-10 effective in counterinsurgency operations. The F-35 can deliver precision-guided munitions from higher altitudes, but it was not designed to absorb ground fire and keep flying the way the Warthog routinely did. Critics of the retirement push argue the Air Force is optimizing for a great-power war scenario while discounting the irregular conflicts that have dominated U.S. military operations for the past two decades. The congressional restrictions in place through September 2026 exist precisely because lawmakers remain unconvinced that the transition plan accounts for this gap, and because they want clearer evidence that new tactics, unmanned aircraft, or other platforms can reliably replicate the A-10’s reassuring presence overhead for troops in contact.
What the Hill AFB Ceremony Signals
The “Hawg Out” at Hill Air Force Base was more than a feel-good sendoff for a beloved aircraft. It was an operational milestone. The Ogden Air Logistics Complex is one of three Air Force depot maintenance centers in the country, and its decision to process the last A-10 through the 571st’s maintenance line means the infrastructure for deep overhauls of the airframe is winding down. Rebuilding that capacity later, should the need arise, would be expensive and slow. The ceremony highlighted that Hill’s A-10 depot line is winding down, a step that would be difficult and costly to rebuild if requirements changed later.
For the thousands of military and civilian workers at Hill AFB, the shift away from A-10 maintenance creates both uncertainty and opportunity. The base already handles depot work on the F-35 and the F-16, and the Air Force has been expanding F-35 sustainment capacity across its logistics network. Workers with experience on the A-10’s relatively simple mechanical systems will need to adapt to the F-35’s software-intensive maintenance requirements, a transition that demands different training and toolsets. The base’s long-term economic footprint depends on capturing a larger share of F-35 depot work as the fleet grows, and the end of A-10 overhauls frees hangar space, personnel, and funding that can be redirected toward those newer aircraft as they become the backbone of the combat air forces.
A Forced Bet on the Future
The tension between retiring the A-10 and maintaining close air support capability is not an abstract policy debate. It has direct consequences for ground troops who depend on air cover in combat. The congressional mandate requiring briefings and inventory reporting before further retirements can proceed reflects a desire to keep that reality front and center as the Air Force reshapes its force structure. Lawmakers are effectively insisting that the service prove, with data rather than promises, that new aircraft, munitions, and concepts of operation can meet or exceed the responsiveness and persistence that the Warthog provided in past conflicts.
In that sense, the last A-10 leaving Hill AFB is both an ending and a test. It closes a historic chapter for an aircraft that became synonymous with close air support, while committing the Air Force to a modernization path that remains politically and operationally contested. As the current legal constraints on A-10 divestment run through Sept. 30, 2026, the service will face continued scrutiny over how its mix of newer aircraft and other systems will cover close air support needs. Whether the “Hawg Out” comes to be seen as a prudent handoff to a more survivable force, or as the premature retirement of a uniquely capable jet, will depend on how convincingly the Air Force can show that its bet on the future does not leave troops on the ground with less support when they need it most.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
