NO DIET, PLEASE: Air Force Leader Wants ‘Flying Coke Machine’ to Replace A-10.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh compared the desired capability to the convenience and flexibility of a soda machine. “Imagine the … flying Coke machine and just having a Coke machine overhead, and you put your quarter in and you get whatever kind of firepower you want when you want it,” he said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington, D.C. “In the perfect world, that’s close-air support of the future.”

For years, the Air Force has been trying to kill the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the service’s close-air-support workhorse. Officials have cited budget constraints and the need to save money to invest in other platforms as reasons to get rid of it. Congress has kept the plane alive, but service leaders are already thinking about what comes next.

“The right close-air support replacement is something that’s overhead the ground force all the time and is firepower on demand,” Welsh said. “It’s flying artillery” and “911 rockets.”

The Air Force’s top procurement programs have suffered from development problems and schedule delays in recent years. But Welsh doesn’t envision major difficulties in acquiring a new close-air-support system.

“We don’t think this would take that long to do and we don’t think it’s that complicated of a design problem,” he said. “The technology is available to us. We can develop it.”

Make it a drone and put the Army in charge of it.