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From: stevenp@decwrl.pa.dec.com (Steven Philipson)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Persian Gulf Combat Aircraft--The A-4 Skyhawk
Message-ID: <1990Nov29.002447.18782@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 29 Nov 90 00:24:47 GMT
References: <1990Oct29.025307.6365@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct8.030359.11680@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct10.000344.29709@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct11.051241.412@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct26.020053.25883@cbnews.att.com>
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From: stevenp@decwrl.pa.dec.com (Steven Philipson)
In article <1990Oct29.025307.6365@cbnews.att.com>, ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu
    (Gary Coffman) writes;
 
> The DoD ignores the most logical action which is to continue the A-10
> production line. Ten penny nails are an old design, but as long as we
> continue to make new ones, they do the job they were designed for well.
> I've seen nothing that is significantly better at CAS than the A-10
> so the logical course is to continue to produce the A-10.

   There's only one problem with this "logical course" -- the A-10 has
been out of production for years, and Republic is in pretty poor shape
and might not be able to get it back into production.  In any case, the
cost of restarting production would be high.  Meanwhile, the F-16 line
is still in operation.  There may be better alternatives for the CAS
mission than the A-16, but it's no simple or cheap matter to churn out
a few more A-10s.

						   Steve
					(the certified flying fanatic)
					    stevenp@decwrl.dec.com