The US Air Force is soliciting information for possible Fairchild A-10A re-engining as part of a proposed wider structural and avionics programme to extend the attack aircraft's operational life by another 30 years.
Northrop Grumman, which acquired A-10 design responsibility from the former Fairchild, has approached General Electric to study fitting a version of the civil CF34-8 turbofan. The work is intended to address the aircraft's relatively low 300kt (550km/h) airspeed and its vulnerability to shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles.
Compared to the current civil 14,000lb (60kN) CF34-8, the proposed A-10 engine would be derated to around 11,000lb thrust, flat rated for hot-and-high operating conditions.
"This allows us to provide a significant improvement in performance," says Stephen Clark, advanced programmes manager.
A trade-off study was made of improvements that could be made to the A-10's 8,000lb thrust TF34-100, from which the civil CF34 was derived. Uprating the current powerplant was found to be technically more risky and less cost effective than installing a new engine.
GE estimates that the CF34-8 will generate $3-4 billion-worth of savings on engine maintenance over the remaining projected 8,000-9,000h life of the aircraft. "There would be no planned engine removals in that time period," says Clark.
The CF34 has a design life of 35,000h. Installing the new engine would allow for the retention of the existing nacelle, but the inlet spool would have to be reshaped to accommodate the CF34-8's 50mm (2in) wider fan diameter. The penalty is a 590kg (1,300lb) powerplant weight increase, plus 182kg in structural modifications, which would have to be balanced by an extra 318kg of nose ballast.
The USAF is also planning a structural improvement programme. Of the 713 aircraft built, 368 A-10s and OA-10s remain operational and there are plans to reactivate 40 stored in the desert as attrition replacements.
Source: Flight International
