The A-10 may be in the twilight of its career, but that doesn’t mean it’s done proving new capabilities, some of which could impact the USAF’s larger tactical airpower force. In particular, it just tested one capability we have been highlighting as a huge opportunity and potential necessity for a future fight in the Pacific.
A test A-10, looking like it borrowed its nose from an A-6 Intruder, flew for the first time equipped with a refueling probe in place of its nose-mounted aerial refueling receptacle earlier this week. The program has been ongoing for some time. Within days of that first flight, the test ‘Hog’ successfully plugged into a C-130 equipped with aerial refueling drogues. An image, circulating on social media, shows the A-10 in question connected to a drogue trailing behind a Hercules.
The implications of this test go beyond the A-10. We had previously made the case, in detail, how USAF fighters equipped with probes would be of extreme use during a crisis in the Pacific. We also have made the case for smaller tactical tankers supporting these operations and how they could be essential to the USAF’s success in such a conflict.
The ability for fighters to launch with heavy loads from short runways, even those that have been battle damaged, and immediately tank-up on gas before heading deeper into enemy territory would be a huge plus for the USAF. Currently, all of its tactical jets use the receptacle and boom mode of aerial refueling, where a jet tanker plugs into them, usually at high altitudes, for refueling. This makes the USAF’s Agile Combat Employment strategy, where fighters will hop from one austere forward airfield to another in order to stay ahead of the enemy’s targeting cycle, and stay within range of being combat relevant, somewhat problematic. Jet tankers require long runways and do not refuel at very low altitudes. The ability for USAF fighters to utilize MC-130s and HC-130s, or even Marine KC-130s, as well as standard C-130Js modified for aerial refueling, would drastically change this equation, operating from shorter fields alongside fighters with far more flexibility.
CN21 Agile Combat Employment with F-35A Lightning IIs at Northwest Field, Guam, Feb. 16, 2021.
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In addition, refueling at altitude, even what is considered low altitude by special operations focused jet tankers in the USAF’s inventory, which you can read all about here, still is many thousands of feet in the air. This leaves them and their ‘customers’ vulnerable to long-range detection and increasingly far reaching air defenses. This is especially true for an adversary like China, that is investing very heavily into its anti-access/area-denial strategy, which will make normal combat operations far more dangerous much farther from a tactical jet’s target area than in past conflicts. So getting far lower, below the radar horizon, for refueling would go a long way in mitigating this growing threat.
With this in mind, we will likely see aerial refueling by the USAF’s jet tankers, KC-135s and KC-46s, drop lower and new training and procedures will be needed to support this. Risks also increase at these lower altitudes, especially considering that weather can be far more of a factor and aircraft handling changes in the thick air. But even if the USAF adapts its existing jet tanker force to lower altitude refueling operations, they still will not be able to operate out of the airstrips that C-130s can. The USAF also already has many C-130s to leverage for this role, leaving the jet tankers for more traditional, longer-range support missions, which they will be overtaxed with during a major fight in the Pacific to begin with, before even having to support ACE operations.
Thus, giving the A-10, as well as other fighters, like F-16s and F-15s, the ability to be equipped with a probe and pairing them with C-130 tankers, could drastically change the USAF’s ACE equation, and make it far more tactically relevant than it currently is. The C-130s could also work as transports to support small groups of fighters hopping around the Pacific, while also providing tanker support for kinetic sorties.
It’s also worth noting that the USAF is now interested in the exact purpose-built aircraft we originally posited for this mission, but procuring an entirely new type, while sticking to the boom and receptacle concept, is a much bigger ask than adapting the force it already has. Arguably, there would be a place for both concepts in the USAF’s portfolio if it really doubles down on its ACE vision and the boom-equipped tactical tanker could also service probe-equipped fighter aircraft.
For the A-10, the addition of a probe makes even more sense, as these aircraft have the combat search and rescue ‘Sandy’ mission, where they directly escort and provide close air support for special operations helicopters working to pluck personnel out of highly contested territory. This same mission set has been highlighted like nothing in recent memory just today over Iran. The HC-130s and MC-130s are already equipped to provide fuel to rotary-wing aircraft during these operations. They could also support A-10s with aerial refueling, as well. This would extend the endurance and range of the A-10’s Sandy mission set.
It will be interesting to see if the program moves beyond this demonstration and if this capability gets eyed for more of the USAF’s tactical jet force. It was in the works for some time and appears to have been put into purgatory due to the A-10’s pending retirement, before being put back on a fast track recently. This is at least a sign that the USAF sees major merit in the concept.
As for how the USAF’s fighters could be equipped with a probe, multiple solutions exist, including installing them on drop tanks and conformal fuel tanks, to bolting them onto the empennages of the aircraft. Future F-35As could be equipped with both a receptacle and a refueling probe as the latter option is installed on the B and C model.
Regardless of what’s to come, this is an encouraging sign that the USAF at least appears to be questioning its ACE dreams and trying to see how relatively simple alterations to it could make it more operationally realistic. If anything else, the Warthog getting this option could help enhance its CSAR capabilities and open the aperture to what tankers can provide gas to it for other operations. Considering the major challenges of future CSAR operations the USAF is facing, where range will be a huge problem, letting the A-10 tank from the same assets as their rotary-wing brethren would be a huge win.
Contact the author: Tyler@Twz.com