The skilled professionals of the 309th Aircraft Maintenance Group at Hill AFB took a formerly crashed Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II and spent more than three years restoring it to a like-new condition. In July of 2018, tail number 80-0264 arrived to Hill AFB in pieces, strapped to flatbed trucks. Now, the revived A-10 is expected to fly back to its home station with the Michigan Air National Guard this week. During a training mission over Michigan’s Grayling Air Gunnery Range in the summer of 2017, Capt. Brett DeVries flew 80-0264 back to base for 25 minutes after a misfire in the aircraft’s 30 mm cannon caused the canopy and several panels to blow off.
As they headed back, DeVries’ wingman radioed over more bad news. The nose wheel was hung up and the main landing gear didn’t go down. DeVries made the decision to do a belly landing with no wheels and no canopy. He made such a skilled landing that it was possible for the Warthog to be repaired and returned to service. That’s how the 309th AMXG got involved. Air Force officials contacted their elite team of A-10 experts at Hill to do an initial evaluation and see what it would take to salvage the aircraft. Every part that needed to be manufactured was done within the 309th Maintenance Group at Hill and there were plenty of parts constraints on an aircraft that’s more than 40 years old.
“We knew we could do it, but it would take a long time. We basically rebuilt the entire front of the A-10 without aided engineering and un-procurable parts that had to be local manufactured,” said Daniel Wise, 571st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron A-10 planning chief.
“A lot of the parts are unavailable so we have to run them through our local manufacturing process and make them ourselves. With any of the other weapons systems, if they have a bad part, they order it through supply and replace it. On the A-10’s, we’re kind of in a different world,” said Scott Oster 571st AMXS lead A-10 planner. “.”
The most significant damage occurred when the gun malfunctioned and not actually from the belly landing. There’s a main nose bean right next to the gun that blew up, so the inside of the entire gun cavity had to be rebuilt. It was just a whole lot of structural work, like 90 percent. The A-10 engineers at Hill are the only engineers who touch anything on the A-10s and were key to the success of rebuilding the aircraft. It’s constant feedback between us and engineering. It took the entire A-10 family working together to get 80-0264 back in the air and everyone involved should be very pleased. It’s America’s number-one choice for close-air support and getting 264 ready to fly back home is really something to be proud of.
