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Why always the hate on the bag? If youre comfortable with your job what should it matter. Honestly how many jobs in the af exist because of the bag warers? As long as everyones treated well and the bag wearers dont exploit stuff whats the harm in the distinction

Just think about the poor bastard who has to file all those hurt feelings reports every time a wing/cc wears his flightsuit.

All 48 FW prsnl accounted for and just a few very minor injuries per FW CC.

Even better - holding an AC-130 off to engage a target with 105mm artillery. Key radio..."You guys know we have a hundred rounds of that onboard and can actually see what we're shooting at right?"

Huh. That trick actually works? I always figured the ABU wearers found it condescending, like when presidential candidates roll up their sleeves while visiting factories.

I flew for the Army once upon a time and I echo the sentiment that the A-10 belongs in the USAF. The Army warrant officer fraternity was fun to be in, and flying helicopters low and slow was a blast...but the Army is organizationally handicapped to utilizing an aircraft like the A-10. Back in the Clinton days, we'd have our budget cut every FY because the Engineer and Infantry brigades that ran our state (I was ARNG) didn't understand why an aviation unit would need so much money...only when we had tons of guys going non-current did they transfer money back to us. It was always a budgetary mess, and we were always treated like ground vehicles. The command at the top really had no understanding of how aircraft were used.

Please excuse me while I put in my 2 cents on this thread. I can tell you that this discussion is an exercise in futility for many reasons (there isn't nearly enough time and space here to list them all). I don't know everything, but as a combat experienced Army attack pilot who is in the process of transitioning to the Air Force, I think my 2 cents hold some value on this topic. First and foremost, the people who already mentioned it are dead right; the money and logistics alone will prevent this from happening. Again this is my 2 cents, but if money and logistics were not an issue, it would still be a horrible idea. This is not to discount what the OP said with regard to WO's ability to effectively employ highly complex aircraft in combat. I am myself a WO. Many of us have degrees, and some are even former commissioned guys who gave up their commission just to fly more. To me, the problem doesn't, and never will, lie in Army Aviation. The problem is the Army as an organization overall. The Army politicians hate aviation (up until the point where they need us to accomplish their mission). The Army is a ground force, always will be, and will always focus on that. Much of the leadership are indeed very intelligent and respectable individuals who know and love what they do, but they do not, and never will, understand aviation. They over-scrutinize it, structure it as an infantry unit, dress it like an infantry unit, train it like an infantry unit, and run it like an infantry unit. I could go on and on with more specifics (most of which people here couldn't relate to), but I don't care to bitch too much about my frustrations with the Army here. I'm a grown man and know that every organization has it's problems and politics. I'm just saying that even if it were possible, any such aircraft is better off in the AF's hands. The AF is now, and will be for the foreseeable future, the most competent, capable, and effective employer of air power in the world (by a healthy margin). There are some damn good reasons why it separated from the Army in 1947, and those reasons are still valid today. The system that the Army has is working fairly well at the moment, but that's more of a testament to the ability of the men and women of Army Aviation to work with the hand that the Army commanders have dealt them, and not so much an example of how the Army leadership knows how to run aviation. Anyway back to my jalapeno corn practice, all I'm saying is I wouldn't bet the barn on this one.

Sigh, how about they have more money to train. The myth of the 10,000 hour WO just doesn't exist anymore. You want to know why the 160th is good at what they do? Because they are organized and funded to train to their core task, and as an organization they are very good. As individuals, they're human being like the rest of us, they have ding dongs and super stars, they just have the ability to get rid of the ding dongs if they really want to. Furthermore, if you need 10,000 hours to make a tactical expert, your training program sucks ass.

Who really cares if it does happen, AF-wise? If you sell your car, do you wonder and worry what the next guy who purchased it does with it? IF this were to happen, the Army will either succeed or fail. That would be on them. Would this be impossible? Im sure there would be some pretty severe growing pains, but Army people have had fixed-wing assets as well as worked on ejection seats and egress systems with the OV-1. Insofar as the extensive weapons suites, that could probably be managed with some growing pains too. Interoperability-wise, handling their own fires short of the FSCL with this, fine. They'd have to play well more with others to do much beyond that. Possible? Anything is possible. Probable? Doubtful, only because like the OP, I heard this during Desert Storm for the first time, and it's reared it's ugly head here and there since. Should it be done? Depends. If the AF doesn't like or want the mission, then they shouldn't half-ass it and short change it at the leadership level. If that's all their going to do, then give/sell/lease/rent it to the customer who wants, IF they want it. Let them do the work the AF HQ-types don't care to fund correctly, take seriously, or want anything to do with. It will either work, or it won't.