WASHINGTON — A report in Defense News states the Air Force may be forced to ground a portion of its A-10 Warthog squadrons as early as Fiscal Year 2018 due to wing age concerns.  This would possibly affect planes now stationed at Moody AFB in Valdosta.

The report notes that the wings on the planes can’t be replaced before their age expiration, according to the head of the Air Force Material Command, General Ellen Pawlikowski.

Though there are no plans to retire the close ground air support planes for the foreseeable future, up to three squadrons will have to be retired unless new wings can be funded.  As of today, 109 of the 281 A-10’s in operation need wing replacement.  That would mean consolidation of the remaining planes.

The report goes on to state that even with the funding issue solved, the Air Force won’t be able to post bids, award contracts, and modify the planes before the service life of the current wings expire.

“We’re trying to work through to see if we can get to the point where we will not have to ground airplanes waiting to get wings, but as it stands right now, we will have to ground airplanes while we work through getting additional wings,” she said during an exclusive interview with Defense News at the Air Force Association’s annual conference.

“What we will do, is we will have to manage the fleet in order to provide sufficient jets, particularly for the squadrons that are deploying in support to operations. But aircraft availability will be impacted due to the fact that we will not have sufficient wings to maintain the current aircraft availability,” she said to the Defense News in their report.

The report went on to note that the congressional armed services committees have included a $103 million authorization in their policy bills that would allow the service to restart production of A-10 wings and manufacture four wing sets, and that measure was then approved by the House and Senate.

However, that legislation does not actually allocate funding, and Congress will have to pass a spending bill before the Air Force can move forward with buying new wingsets.

The report did not note whether this would impact planes now stationed at Moody AFB, or to what degree if so.