The Air Force put on a show of force with the A-10, and a day later it got taken off the chopping block

The 23rd Fighter Wing, which oversees the largest A-10 fighter group in the Air Force, put on a show of force with its Thunderbolts on Monday, staging an “elephant walk” at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia.

“The exercise was conducted in order to demonstrate the wing’s ability to rapidly deploy combat ready forces across the globe,” Moody Air Force Base said on its Facebook page.

The Flying Tigers‘ “elephant walk” — a phrase that has been in use since at least World War II — was carried out by 30 A-10s, a HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter, and two HC-130J Combat King aircraft, the Air Force said, “for precision attack, personnel recovery and combat support worldwide.”

The Pave Hawk and the Combat Kings came from the 347th and 563rd Rescue Squadrons.

A day after the demonstration, the president’s fiscal year 2018 budget was released, revealing that there were no plans to mothball the A-10, which is nicknamed the Warthog.

While there has been a concerted push to keep the A-10 in the air, the demonstration on Monday doesn’t appear to have had anything to do with the decision announced on Tuesday.

 

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Featured image courtesy of USAF