An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot with the 354th Fighter Squadron from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., prepares to land Oct. 27, 2023, at an undisclosed location within U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility. CENTCOM oversees military operations in the Middle East. (U.S. Air Force)

The Air Force is moving on from its steady, slow-flying attack jets that have been heralded for decades of service, especially among the ground forces saved by A-10 Thunderbolt IIs while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The long-coming transition away from the jet — affectionally dubbed the Warthog by those ground troops who relied on it for close air support — was set to take a major step Friday as the Air Force inactivated one of its storied units, the 354th Fighter Squadron, which has flown the A-10 since 1991. The unit and its associated maintenance unit the 354th Fighter Generation Squadron were set for the inactivation ceremony Friday evening at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, near Tucson, Ariz., service officials said.

The ceremony comes weeks after the unit made its official last A-10 flight over the Tucson skies on June 21, and after all its aircraft had been moved to other A-10 units or the Boneyard — the final resting place at Davis-Monthan for the service’s retired aircraft, a base spokesperson said Friday. By the end of this decade, the Air Force plans for its entire fleet of A-10s to rest in the Boneyard.

Though initially resisted by members of Congress and others who have long supported the Warthog, lawmakers agreed with Air Force brass last year to divest from the five-decade-old jet in favor of newer, more advanced aircraft — the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, which is the most expensive weapon in U.S. history.

A-10 pilots have said watching the service move on from the platform would be difficult. Nonetheless, the mission to support ground troops in battle would continue, Col. Scott Mills, the 355th Wing commander at Davis-Monthan, told Task & Purpose, an online military publication.

“The attack mindset is never and will never be defined by the aircraft we fly,” said Mills, a longtime A-10 pilot who has flown the aircraft in combat. “The attack mindset is actually ... based solely on the soldier, sailor or Marine [who is] on the ground. It’s the ability to act when no one else will take action that is dangerous and put the needs of that ground team ahead of your own and ahead of your aircraft and do whatever it takes to make sure that at the end of the day, they are protected and enabled to achieve whatever their objective is for that day.”

The service plans to move most A-10 pilots and maintainers into F-35s in the coming years, arguing that aircraft can conduct the close air support mission that made the Warthog famous. Other A-10 units, including at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia and Gowen Field Air National Guard Base in Idaho, are expected to shed their A-10s by 2028 in favor of F-35s and F-16s, respectively.

At Davis-Monthan, the A-10 mission will be replaced with a special operations mission, as the 492nd Special Operations Wing will relocate from Hurlburt Field in Florida to the Arizona base with several aircraft, including the MC-130J Commando II gunship and the fledgling OA-1K armed overwatch aircraft program.

While the A-10s have proven popular for their lifesaving ability to fend off enemy ground attacks in regions where U.S. troops face little-to-no airborne threat, Air Force officials have long worried the aging Warthogs would prove easy targets against near-peer powers such as China or Russia. The planes were not designed to evade modern radar systems or for an air-to-air fight, but specifically to support ground troops by flying low and slow below 1,000 feet. The A-10 carries several air-to-ground bombs and its most famous weapon — the 30mm GAU-8/A cannon, a seven-barrel Gatling gun that fires 3,900 rounds per minute.

Friday’s ceremony will not be the first time that the 354th Fighter Squadron has inactivated. The unit inactivated shortly after World War II, when its pilots flew P-51 Mustang fighters across the Europe, according to a unit history. It inactivated again in the 1950s before returning to fly F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers in Vietnam. The unit inactivated again in 1982 before its activation in 1991, when it first began flying the A-10.

Lt. Col. Patrick Chapman, the squadron’s commander, led the unit on its final A-10 deployment in the fall to the Middle East in support of operations in Iraq and Syria. The unit flew the aircraft out of Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates on its final deployment, according to the service.

Chapman called the tour “operationally challenging … during a very turbulent time in the Middle East.” He said he was proud of his unit’s performance and expected the airmen would fare well with their new aircraft.

The lieutenant colonel said he agreed the A-10 “would not perform at all well” in a high-end conflict with a powerful enemy, but he said ground forces would continue to need attack pilots to support them in a close-in fight.

“We’re not defined by what we fly,” he told Task & Purpose this week. “We’re defined by the attack we bring with it.”