Boeing received $212 million from the Air Force to supply 56 more sets of wings for A-10 ground-attack aircraft, announced the company on Wednesday. This is part of the company’s continuing work under a $2 billion contract awarded in June 2007 to provide up to 242 wing sets for A-10s in the fleet that have comparatively thin-skinned wings that have been susceptible to fatigue cracking. With this new tasking for 56 wing sets, the Air Force has now ordered 173 sets, states the company’s Sept. 4 release. Boeing manufactures the wings at its plant in Macon, Ga. The new wings are expected to improve the A-10’s mission availability by about 4 percent, which “will help save the Air Force an estimated $1.3 billion in maintenance costs during the next 30 years,” states the release. Boeing has already delivered 48 wing sets, a Boeing spokeswoman told the Daily Report on Wednesday.
The Air National Guardsman who was arrested last year for sharing hundreds of top secret and classified documents to online chatrooms was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison on Nov. 12 after pleading guilty to several charges this March.