Weapon of choice: technology upgrades give edge to ground-attack pilots.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: Close Air Support

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DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. -- When he flew combat missions in Afghanistan in 2004, Maj. Neal Kistler lugged two sacks of maps into the cockpit of his A-10 and used a red grease pencil to notate the locations of enemy artillery while in flight. Before he could drop a bomb, he had to flip a number of switches, triple check their settings and then reset them after deployment to correct the bomb's trajectory.

Those analog ways of doing business are to be expected aboard a warplane that was designed in the 1970s as the Air Force's sole ground-attack jet. Only in the past two years have A-10 pilots moved into the digital age with the Thunderbolt II, which has become the weapon of choice for ground units pinned down by enemy fire.

Along with a wing replacement program, the interior of the aircraft is being updated with new digital cockpit displays, improved flight controller sticks and throttles and reconfigured control panels. Advanced targeting pods will give pilots better tools to conduct surveillance and accurately deploy weapons. Finally, the airplanes will be able to accept targeting information digitally and send text messages to the ground.

"The integration of these systems is going to change the way we fight--dramatically improve the way we fight," says Col. Kent Laughbaum, commander of the 355th Fighter Wing, which has been flying the airplane since the Cold War. "The airframe is an old airframe, but with these advancements, we anticipate flying for another 20 years."

The upgrades are arriving at an opportune time. The A-10s have been flying in support of troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the beginning of the conflicts, when the Air Force conducted interdiction operations and pre-planned most of its targeting missions, officials say. But the nature of the wars has changed. Insurgents have dispersed into populated areas to make it more difficult for U.S. forces to find them. Such tactics require troops and warplanes to conduct more intelligence operations to track them down. Once the enemy is found, commanders must determine how best to handle the situation without harming non-combatants.

Pilots insist that their primary mission of close-air support has not changed despite the battlefield transitioning to the urban environment where insurgents exploit the civilian population to shield their activities.

The basics of the mission--knowing the exact locations of friendly forces, pinpointing the enemy and coordinating with an airman on the ground to support troops with weapons or non-kinetics--are still the same.

"What has changed is our ability to do those basics precisely," says Laughbaum, who began his career in the A-10A, but spent the bulk of his flying years in the F-15E. Still, he is a fierce supporter of the aircraft, fondly called the "Warthog" by its operators and by ground forces whose lives it has saved. "I have story after story upon story of A-10s coming at the point of contact and tipping the balance to victory," he says.

The technology upgrades in the A-10C will improve the air-ground coordination necessary for conducting close-air support missions, the wing's pilots say. More crucially, they will help the pilots succeed in the urban environment, where they worry about non-combatants whom they cannot see inside buildings.

"There could be a family in there sleeping. You just don't know. Information relay is just crucial," says Capt. Matthew Harmon, weapons officer for the 354th Fighter Squadron.

Many times, A-10 pilots who are called to support ground troops scramble to...