The rest of the story

Airman, August, 2004 by Steven Thomas

We at the A-10 Thunderbolt 11 System Program Office at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, would like to shed a little light on the planned "life after death" of aircraft 81-987 featured in the magazine ["Warthog's Finiflight," May 2004].

It's true that 81-987 will never take to the skies on its own power again, but it still has a very important future. The aircraft will be used in a year-long structural fatigue test.

The aircraft will he shipped to Northrop Grumman Corp. in Bethpage, N.Y. The fuselage will he subjected to conditions that simulate hours of flight. Engineers will then perform special inspections to find any critical failure area on the fuselage that could be cause for future required repairs. This information will be analyzed to determine what inspections should be conducted in the future to the remaining A-10s.

Aircraft 81-987's legacy will live on as a pioneer in the engineering world by making the rest of the A-10 fleet better and stronger.

On another note, the author wrote 81-987 was the 987th aircraft to roll off the assembly line in 1981. In fact, this was the 682nd A-10 built out of a total of 713 aircraft. There are currently 356 A-10s flying.

Steven Thomas

Hill Air Force Base, Utah