Contract and Air Force technicians are hip deep in the process to upgrade the service’s A-10 attack aircraft, all of which Gen. Michael Moseley, Chief of Staff, said earlier this summer the Air Force plans to keep. Lockheed Martin has produced a new weapons delivery system and integrated it with advanced targeting pods for precision munitions. At Ogden Air Logistics Center, technicians have to rewire—replacing 1,700 wires with 14,000 feet of new—the Warthogs to accommodate the new system and new avionics, all part of the Precision Engagement Program. Other workers are revamping the Hogs structurally. All in all, there are some 150 Ogden civilians and L3 Communications contractors working various aspects of the A-10 overhaul. Ogden expects to complete 93 Hogs in Fiscal 2007.
An Air Force F-16 pilot designed a collapsible ladder that weighs just six pounds and folds into the unused cockpit map case.