U.S Congress Blocks Air Force’s 2026 A-10 Retirement Plan, Orders Three-Year CAS Transition Strategy

As reported by Aerospace Global News on December 10, 2025, the U.S. Congress has approved the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with provisions that halt the U.S. Air Force’s push to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt II, forcing the service to maintain a minimum fleet size, justify future divestments, and deliver a comprehensive transition strategy for the close air support (CAS) mission.

Congress Rejects Accelerated Drawdown

The FY2026 NDAA blocks the Air Force from using authorized funds to retire, prepare to retire, or reclassify any A-10 if doing so reduces the fleet below 103 aircraft, a threshold specifically designed to prevent the service from executing its proposed rapid divestment of all remaining 162 A-10s in a single fiscal year. At least 93 aircraft must remain primary mission-capable through September 30, 2026, ensuring several combat-ready squadrons remain active.

Retirements can only proceed through a unit-by-unit waiver process, requiring the Secretary of the Air Force to certify that each divestment includes a viable recapitalization plan, mission redistribution strategy, personnel adjustments and measures to mitigate local base impacts. Even after certification, a 30-day congressional notification period is required before any action can be taken.

Congress additionally mandates that the Air Force submit a detailed A-10 transition plan for 2027–2029 by March 31, 2026, laying out how CAS requirements will be met once the A-10 begins its eventual retirement.

Why Congress Stepped In

Lawmakers have consistently argued that the A-10 still fills a specialized niche that no current aircraft fully replaces. Throughout the early 2020s, the Air Force gained approval for limited retirements, but Congress repeatedly intervened, claiming that alternatives—primarily the F-35, and in some cases the F-15E and MQ-9 Reaper—were not yet mature enough to assume the full CAS burden.

Senators on the Armed Services Committees have emphasized several key concerns:

• Limited availability of high-end fighters for low-altitude, high-precision CAS missions, especially when F-35 squadrons are tasked with Indo-Pacific deterrence operations.

• Ongoing delays in F-35 production and modernization, including Block 4 capabilities required to improve targeting, survivability and sensor performance for close support missions.

• The A-10’s unmatched combination of loiter time, survivability, low operating cost per hour, and visual engagement capability, features essential for ground forces in permissive or semi-permissive environments.

• The absence of a specialized CAS-designated replacement aircraft, following the cancellation of earlier light attack experiments such as OA-X.

Members of Congress have repeatedly warned that retiring the A-10 prematurely would create a CAS capability gap, particularly in regional conflicts, counterinsurgency missions, and contingency operations where modern air defenses are limited.

Air Force Counterarguments and Long-Term Goals

The Air Force has consistently sought A-10 retirement for more than a decade, citing:

• The need to shift resources toward next-generation airpower, including F-35 procurement and collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) development.

• Difficulties sustaining a unique A-10 training pipeline as the fleet size shrinks.

• Increasing operational risk if A-10 units are deployed against modern integrated air defense systems, where survivability is not assured.

• The desire to reallocate maintainers across fighter platforms facing manpower shortages.

While the FY2026 NDAA accepts the Air Force’s broader intention to eventually retire the A-10, it rejects the proposed accelerated, single-year drawdown, insisting that the transition must be gradual, justified, and accompanied by validated capability replacements.

Historical Context Behind Congressional Protection

The A-10’s durability in U.S. force structure has long been tied to its performance in combat and its unique engineering.

Developed under the post-Vietnam A-X program, the A-10 was designed specifically for close air support:

• A titanium “bathtub” cockpit to survive direct ground fire.

• High-mounted engines, minimizing risk from debris ingestion and improving survivability.

• A straight wing and high-lift design enabling slow-speed maneuvering and long loiter times.

• Redundant hydraulics and manual reversion controls, enabling flight even after catastrophic damage.

Its defining feature, the GAU-8/A Avenger 30 mm cannon, fires up to 3,900 rounds per minute and was engineered into the aircraft’s geometry, with recoil counterbalanced by the airframe’s centerline. Its accuracy and armor-penetrating capability made it a decisive platform during conflicts from the Cold War to the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The A-10’s reputation for toughness was cemented by incidents such as Capt. Kim “Killer Chick” Campbell’s 2003 Iraq mission, where an A-10 returned safely despite massive structural damage and total hydraulic failure—an outcome possible only because of the aircraft’s unique design.

What Happens Next

With the FY2026 NDAA now law:

• A-10 squadrons will remain operational through 2026.

• The Air Force must justify any retirements via detailed, mission-specific waiver requests.

• Congress will evaluate the upcoming 2027–2029 transition plan to determine whether CAS alternatives finally meet required maturity levels.

• The debate over the A-10’s future is expected to continue into the late 2020s as the Air Force develops CCAs, advances F-35 capabilities and explores potential light-attack or CAS-oriented platforms.

For now, Congress has reaffirmed that the A-10 Thunderbolt II remains indispensable to U.S. close air support doctrine—and will not be retired until a credible, fielded replacement is in place.