A-10 has a friend

[Plane]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/war-against-islamic-state-moves-a-10-jet-from-cutting-board-to-front-lines/ar-BBmW2YX

"It's showing its unique capabilities in the fight against ISIS," McSally said. "You need to fly low. You need to have a big weapons load because if there's a significant fight going on and you run out of ammo in the middle of it, people are going to die. And you need to be survivable in that kind of environment."

With its cockpit surrounded by a titanium tub and the plane reinforced with layers of armor, the A-10 has spawned legendary tales of pilots returning from combat in badly wounded planes that were full of holes and missing an engine, but still flying.

"The plane was built to show up on the battlefield, loiter, take hits and survive," McSally said. "It's amazing. We can lose a lot of our hydraulics, all of our electronics, lose one engine and have flight-control damage, yet still fly back to friendly territory."

Almost a quarter-century ago, after McSally graduated from the Air Force Academy and got her wings, she was given her choice of  fighter jets to fly, thanks to her class rank and training performance. She did a lot of research, talked with a number of experienced military pilots — and chose the A-10.

McSally would fly 325 combat hours in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of them in the A-10, before retiring in 2005.

"I totally love the plane," she said.

    One of the A-10's problems is that it is more capable of ground support than the F-35, which is an ongoing project of huge economic impact.

     So , it is in the way.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The A-10 is designed for a specific useful purpose of fighting this sort of war.

The F-35 is designed for the purpose of  transferring huge amounts of money from the taxpayers to the Military Industrial Complex.

[Plane]

The A-10 is designed for a specific useful purpose of fighting this sort of war.

Actually it is a cold war leftover, it was designed to destroy USSR tanks in mass attack, it just happens to also be very good for ground attack generally.

The F-35 is designed for the purpose of  transferring huge amounts of money from the taxpayers to the Military Industrial Complex.

Yes, there is some truth in that.
The A-10 has a lot of friends , but it is not about to make any fortunes or pay the freight for a large factory with a lot of employees.