Hogs in Hypersleep

It looks like the A-10 Warthog will live to fly another day, even if that day doesn’t come for years — after a period of suspended animation:

That’s called Type 1000 storage and would cost over $50,000 a year per A-10 for the first five years and about $12,000 a year after that. It costs $43,000 to put an aircraft into storage and a thousand dollars a year to maintain it. Every four years the stored aircraft is taken out of storage, checked over to make everything is OK and then put back in storage. This coast over $40,000 (depending on what might have to be replaced or fixed). It takes one to four months to take an aircraft out of Type 1000 storage and return it to operational status. Once out of storage you also need about two pilots per A-10 to actually use it in combat. The longer the A-10s are in storage the harder it is to find pilots with any A-10 experience. That means it takes longer to put existing combat pilots (assuming there are many to spare) through transition (to flying the A-10) training.

Putting A-10s in Type 1000 storage is a lot cheaper (by over a million dollars a year) than keeping them in service but it is an option that even many air force leaders believe is prudent and affordable.

My eight-year-old is determined, seriously gung-ho, to attend the Air Force Academy and to become a pilot for the USAF. I hope there are still manned planes for him in 2030.