Aviation Week & Space Technology - 30 March-12 April 2015

have been fl own by traditional Penta-
gon fi ghters, with 24% handled by the
A-10, says USAF Col. Tadd Sholtis,
spokesman for U.S. Air Forces Central
Command. The A-10 is by no means
the sole workhorse CAS aircraft for
these missions, although it is a solid
contributor.
But it is a symbol—especially for
ground troops—of the virtues of CAS,
using airpower to save the lives of sol-
diers engaged in close combat. This is
largely because of the A-10’s charac-
teristic cannon, a seven-barrel, 30-mm
Gatling gun , and the ability of its pi-
lots to fl y lower and slower to support
ground troops—a visible relief in com-
bat. Its companion fi ghters also have
cannons, but they typically fly faster
and higher so ground troops might not
see them in action as often.
Thus Welsh’s frustrated refrain:
“CAS is a mission, not a platform.” He
is visibly irritated by the rhetoric from
A-10 supporters who assert that USAF
has abandoned the mission. “The Air
Force isn’t committed to close air sup-
port? Well, I’ve got 140,000 data points
over the last seven years that prove that
is a ridiculous statement,” Welsh says.
“That’s how many CAS sorties we’ve
fl own. A bout 20,000 a year. When is a
little bit of credit given for that?”
The bottom line in talking to pilots
who have flown CAS missions since
9/11: CAS is all about the training.

THE TRAINING
“You could put us in a Cessna 172 with
an AK-47 and we’d go fl y CAS,” said one
F-15E pilot. Standard procedure, he
says, is to have CAS aircraft—not just
A-10s—on alert. When a “troops in con-
tact” (meaning friendlies in a fi refi ght
need air support) call comes in, entire
support crews line up to ensure the sor-
tie takes of quickly, and they salute the
pilots as they taxi—a sign of support for
the mission to assist soldiers in peril.
In talking with eight pilots at dif-
ferent bases—all of whom performed
CAS missions—they universally said
that CAS is not about the platform, it
is about the training. Ground-based air-
men—aka Joint Terminal Attack Con-
trollers (JTAC)—tasked with calling in
a strike, agree. “At the end of the day,
the tactics are taught to work with any
platform,” said one JTAC among the
team at Nellis AFB, Nevada, Weapons
School who is charged with developing
tactics. The JTACs and pilots of various
aircraft—F-16s, F-15Es, A-10s, B-1s and

B-52s—are trained to employ a variety

of weapons in myriad weather and topo-

graphical conditions. This includes the

now widespread use of precision-guided

munitions and, when needed, cannons.

The airmen are trained to “check

in” with the JTAC when arriving at

airspace over troops in contact. The

JTAC then requests the needed ef ect

and often specifi es which weapon and

its yield. Pilots can then set the fuze as

needed with the Joint Programmable

Fuze employed on service air-launched

munitions. Even with the most ad-

vanced targeting pods and sensors,

JTACs often “talk” a pilot onto a tar-

get. In some cases—notably ambushes

in mountainous regions or urban con-

ditions—selecting too large a weapon

or missing by meters can mean life or

death for friendlies. These missions

are called “danger close.”

CAS pilots point to the so-called

Green Flag exercises, which take place

throughout the year at Nellis or Barks-

dale AFB, Louisiana. Whereas in widely

known Red Flags the service trains pi-

lots with increasingly complex air-to-

air scenarios, Green Flags incorporate

Army ground forces who, together with

USAF components, participate in sce-

narios to hone CAS skills.

The preponderance of focus has re-

cently been on maintaining currency

for pilots to conduct CAS in a permis-

sive environment. While A-10 pilots are

primarily focused on CAS, the train-

ing and tactics focus on the mission

for F-15E, F-16 and B-1 pilots has forced

other missions for these multirole plat-

forms to take a backseat, pilots say. For

many of these pilots at a captain rank,

“We’ve known nothing but this war,”

so the idea of a high-end fi ght against

a near peer is academic.

More than half of the Air Force’s

combat units are not ready to fight

the “high-end” fi ght, USAF Secretary

James has told Congress, referring

to a shift in focus toward operating

in the permissive airspace of Iraq or

Afghanistan. Skills for penetrating en-

emy airspace and attacking the most

protected targets have atrophied.

THE TECHNOLOGY

Pilots of various platforms agree that

the A-10 is purpose-built for CAS. It is

designed to provide the pilot a good fi eld

of view of the ground ; it is optimized to

fl y low and slow and can carry plenty

of precision-guided munitions and can-

non rounds. But the rhetoric that “only

the A-10 guys can do CAS is mostly bar

talk,” says one A-10 pilot. Air Force of-

fi cials say a variety of weapons are em-

ployed in CAS scenarios—from strafi ng

rounds to the 5,000-lb. bunker-buster ,

and they are dropped from a variety of

aircraft (see graph above).

However, the advent of precision-

guided munitions has dramatically en-

hanced CAS accuracy and allowed the

mission to be carried out from aircraft

fl ying higher and faster. Most recently,

the new 250-lb. Small-Diameter Bomb

(SDB) has been employed from the

F-15E. Designed as a long-distance glide

bomb, it was not optimized for direct

attack. However, F-15E pilots developed

tactics to alter altitude for the drop, and

manufacturer Boeing came up with a

fi x to reduce glide time when needed.

In some cases, A-10s have been called

in to take over air support when fi ghters

are either unavailable or insuf cient for

AviationWeek.com/awst AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 55

19%

19%

12%

24%

24%

24%

12%

12%

16%

18%

18%

41%

51%

39%

38%

18%

21%

21%

21%

33%

22%

14%

14%

13%

14%

2006- (^13) (frst A-10 mission)
(including weapons release)
CAS Sorties by Aircraft
From Recent Operations
F-16
F/A-18
A-10
F-15E
B-1
Coalition & Other
Source: U.S. Air Force