A-10 Sunset Years
The A-10 Era Is Ending: Why Some Aircraft Become Part of Who We Are
For nearly half a century, the A-10 Thunderbolt II has been more than an aircraft in the U.S. Air Force inventory. To generations of pilots, maintainers, weapons troops, support personnel and the ground forces who depended on it, the A-10 became part of their military identity.
That long chapter is now approaching its end.
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On September 22, 2026, the final A-10 assigned to Nellis Air Force Base departed the Nevada installation, ending nearly 50 years of A-10 operations at one of the Air Force’s most important centers for tactical training, testing and weapons development. Nellis had operated the A-10 since 1977, and its 66th Weapons Squadron trained more than 300 A-10 weapons officers over the aircraft’s tenure there.
Other pieces of the A-10 community are disappearing as well. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base ended its A-10 flying mission this year, while the Ogden Air Logistics Complex at Hill Air Force Base completed its final A-10 depot aircraft in February. The 571st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, whose maintainers had sustained and extended the life of the aircraft for decades, was slated to deactivate with the completion of that mission.
Aircraft retirements are nothing new in the military. But every once in a while, an aircraft becomes something more than equipment.
The A-10 is one of those aircraft.
An Airplane Built Around a Mission
The A-10 was designed during the Cold War for a brutally straightforward purpose: destroy enemy armor and support troops on the ground.
Everything about the airplane reflected that mission. Its survivability, redundant systems, titanium armor and unmistakable GAU-8/A 30mm cannon were intended for an environment where the aircraft might take damage and still have to get its pilot home.
But the A-10 ultimately served through conflicts its original designers could never have completely anticipated.
It became particularly prominent during the 1991 Gulf War and later became closely associated with close air support during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The aircraft also performed the “Sandy” role supporting combat search and rescue operations.
The mission changed.
Weapons changed.
Avionics changed.
Threats changed.
The airplane stayed.
And generations of Airmen learned how to keep it relevant.
Maintainers Made the A-10 What It Became
Aircraft history is usually written around pilots, missions and combat operations. That’s understandable, but it leaves out a large part of the story.
Aircraft don’t generate sorties by themselves.
Maintainers do.
For decades, A-10 crew chiefs, weapons troops, avionics technicians, engine specialists, structural maintainers and countless other Airmen learned the individual personalities of aging aircraft. They dealt with fatigue, modifications, inspections, wing replacements and the thousand other things required to keep an old combat aircraft ready to fly.
When the final A-10 left Hill’s depot maintenance program in 2026, Air Force officials specifically credited the skill of the maintenance workforce with repeatedly extending the aircraft’s service life.
That experience doesn’t disappear simply because an aircraft leaves the inventory.
At Nellis, A-10 maintainers are already moving to other aircraft and organizations, including F-16 and F-35 units. The Air Force says the maintenance discipline developed through decades of dealing with A-10 structural fatigue, wing replacements and depot-level overhaul is being carried into newer flight-line programs.
That’s how military aviation works.
Airplanes eventually retire.
The knowledge moves on.
Why People Become Attached to Aircraft
Ask someone outside military aviation about an airplane and they’ll probably talk about performance: speed, range, weapons or technology.
Ask someone who spent years working around one and the answer may be very different.
They remember tail numbers.
They remember airplanes that were always broken.
They remember the jet that never seemed to break.
They remember launches in miserable weather, midnight maintenance, TDYs, deployments, exercises and the people standing beside them on the flight line.
Eventually the aircraft becomes a reference point for an entire period of someone’s life.
That’s why certain aircraft develop communities around them long after their operational usefulness begins to fade. The F-4 Phantom, F-14 Tomcat, SR-71 Blackbird and countless other military aircraft still have devoted followings decades after their final operational missions.
The A-10 will almost certainly join them.
Its unmistakable shape, enormous cannon and reputation for supporting troops in close contact have already made the Warthog one of the most recognizable American military aircraft ever built.
But for the people who worked on it, flew it and supported it, the connection goes deeper than recognition.
It represents their unit, their deployment, their crew and their time in uniform.
Squadron Identity Outlives the Aircraft
Military organizations have always developed symbols.
Aircraft silhouettes appear on squadron patches. Tail flashes identify units. Nose art gives individual aircraft personalities. Maintenance units develop their own unofficial artwork and traditions. Deployment shirts commemorate places and missions that may mean almost nothing to anyone outside the unit.
And military challenge coins have become another way of preserving that identity.
An Air Force challenge coin might include an aircraft, squadron emblem, tail number, callsign, maintenance badge or deployment location. Years later, those details can immediately bring someone back to a particular assignment or group of people.
That is one reason aircraft challenge coins and squadron challenge coins remain popular even after a unit changes missions or transitions to another aircraft.
The coin isn’t really about a piece of metal.
It’s about what the design represents.
Custom Challenge Coins Preserve Military History at the Personal Level
Official histories document when units activate, deploy, receive new aircraft and eventually retire them.
Personal military history works differently.
It lives in photographs, patches, retirement gifts, shadow boxes, old squadron shirts and the stories veterans tell one another.
Custom challenge coins have become part of that record.
A well-designed custom military coin can capture an aircraft and unit at a particular moment in time. An A-10 squadron transitioning to another aircraft might create a coin showing both airframes. A maintenance unit could commemorate its final A-10 sortie. A retiring crew chief might receive a coin carrying the tail number of an aircraft he or she maintained for years.
Those aren’t merely collectibles.
They are small markers of shared history.
At Challenge Coin Nation, we have seen how much meaning people can fit onto something only a few inches across. Aircraft profiles, unit insignia, maintenance symbols, dates, mottos and even specific tail numbers can turn a custom coin into something recognizable immediately to the people who were there.
Someone outside the unit may simply see an A-10.
The people who served there see their A-10.
That difference matters.
The Warthog Isn’t Gone Yet
The September departure from Nellis is an important milestone, but it should not be confused with the immediate disappearance of every A-10 from Air Force service.
The Air Force had previously been moving toward complete divestment of the aircraft, and FY2026 budget documents reflected substantial reductions in A-10 flying hours and resources as that process accelerated.
More recent operational demands, however, have altered the timeline. The Pentagon has delayed at least part of the remaining A-10 retirement until 2030, even as individual bases, maintenance organizations and units continue their transitions away from the aircraft.
So the A-10 story isn’t quite finished.
There are still sorties to fly and aircraft to maintain.
But the farewell ceremonies, final flights and unit transitions happening around the Air Force make clear that the Warthog has entered the final phase of its remarkable career.
Airplanes Leave. The People Remember.
Eventually the last operational A-10 will shut down its engines for the final time.
There will be speeches, photographs and probably more than a few people standing around telling stories that begin with some version of:
“You aren’t going to believe what this airplane once did…”
Then people will move on.
Maintainers will work different aircraft. Pilots will fly different missions. Units will change names, locations and equipment.
But decades later, an old patch, photograph or A-10 challenge coin sitting on a shelf may still bring someone immediately back to a flight line on the other side of the world.
That’s one of the interesting things about military service.
Sometimes the equipment we maintain, operate and depend upon becomes intertwined with the people we were when we used it.
The A-10 Thunderbolt II is approaching retirement.
The Warthog community will be around much longer.
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