The Government Accountability Office is not convinced that getting rid of a 40-year-old fighter jet is as good an idea as the Air Force seems to think.

“Let’s talk a little bit about what the A-10 is, and what all it does,” said John Pendelton, director of defense capability and management issues at GAO, on week two of Agency of the Month, featuring Air Force for the month of September. “I mean, it’s iconic, right? It’s a flying tank; it’s got the Gatling gun in front. It’s beloved by the many ground troops that it’s supported in combat. And everyone knows it for the close air support it does.”

The Air Force wants to get rid of it, however. The service believes that it can take advantage of more modern platforms, like unmanned aerial vehicles and precision guided munitions, to accomplish the same primary task, close air support (CAS), that the A-10 fulfills.

But Pendleton said there are additional considerations beyond the A-10’s primary mission. For example, it’s usually A-10 pilots who coordinate rescue missions for pilots who have been shot down, providing cover for helicopters extracting the downed pilots.

The problem, Pendleton said, is that the Air Force does not have a basic set of requirements that would need to be fulfilled if it divests the A-10.

“GAO likes its criteria,” Pendleton said. “We don’t want to just make up things. We want to look and see what the rules are. And requirements very often set the foundation for a program.”

Without these criteria, it’s difficult to estimate the impacts of divestment, Pendleton said. And the main question is how the service intends to mitigate the impact.

In addition, the impacts aren’t limited solely to the Air Force. A-10s provide close air support for ground troops from other services, which would have to then figure out other methods to keep those troops safe.

It’s also an example of a much larger issue within the DoD as a whole. None of DoD’s services and agencies have requirements for divesting from older technologies.

“I think that really is the heart of the issue, if you step back from just the A-10,” Pendleton said. “The department has a lot of aging things. And there’s going to be more and more decision points where they’re going to have to decide when to let go of the old stuff to make room for the newer, more capable stuff.”

Pendleton said GAO has recommended this to the DoD before, but the department did not agree.

He said that while the process shouldn’t be as complicated or drawn out, DoD should have a process of approval for divestment similar to that of acquisition.

“Everyone’s aware that it takes several acts of Congress to buy something,” Pendleton said. “It’s an oversimplification, but we have acquisition so we don’t buy things we don’t need. Our argument is we need clear divestment rules so we don’t get rid of stuff we don’t need.”

Another case happened with the Navy a few years ago, Pendleton said. It tried to retire some old cruisers, but Congress intervened.

The problem, Pendleton said, is that a 40-year-old technology like the A-10 doesn’t stand up to the Air Force’s mandate to prioritize modernization.

But they don’t look past the surface when considering the cost. Pendleton said they look at the program, ask how much money is allotted to it, and call that the savings. Which is fine for broad strokes, he said, but it leaves out certain things. For example, how much will it cost to retrain A-10 maintainers for the F-35?

The Air Force, Pendleton said, told GAO that the A-10 divestment was the most acceptable strategy to remain within the Air Force budget authority while controlling risk across all mission sets.

That may be true for the Air Force, Pendleton said, but GAO isn’t sure it’s true across the department.

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