Last A-10 engine built at Davis-Monthan after 50 years

Airmen at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base have completed the final A-10 Thunderbolt II engine build at the Arizona installation, closing out a maintenance mission that has supported the close air support aircraft there for half a century.

The milestone was marked on 21 May 2026, when Airmen of the 355th Component Maintenance Squadron gathered with wing leadership to recognise the last engine to come together in the base’s engine shop. The work is carried out by aerospace propulsion specialists who inspect, repair, rebuild and test the General Electric TF34 engines that power the jet, with a standard build running about 30 days through a multi-stage process governed by technical data at each step.

Master Sgt. Eugene Rich III, the propulsion flight chief assigned to the 355th CMS, tied the engines to the aircraft’s record over the years. “Some, if not all these engines have saved lives on the ground through close air support missions, and some have carried pilots home while the other engine was damaged,” he said. Rich also noted that the final engine drew in the whole shop rather than a single crew. “All members of the shop put eyes and hands on this engine throughout the build, testing, diagnostic runs and final inspection,” he said. “Typically, only one crew of five would work on any one engine, but this engine has been touched by everyone.”

For Staff Sgt. Bill Bautista, an aerospace propulsion craftsman who has worked on the engines for three years, the occasion carried mixed feeling. “I think the legacy of the A-10 is going to be remembered for generations,” he said. “The A-10 will be missed here in Arizona.”

The connection runs deep at Davis-Monthan, which received its first A-10 in 1976 and has supported the type through deployments, training and daily flying ever since. The aircraft built its reputation around the close air support role, protecting troops on the ground, a purpose the maintainers describe as central to how they view their work.

The end of engine builds at Davis-Monthan fits within the wider drawdown of the A-10 across the US Air Force. The final class of new A-10 pilots graduated at Davis-Monthan on 3 April 2026, and the service’s specialised A-10 depot maintenance at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, closed in February.

The retirement has not been a straightforward run-down, the U.S. Congress used the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 to require the U.S. Air Force to keep a minimum of 103 A-10s through 30 September 2026, and the type has continued to fly operationally, with more than a dozen sent to the Middle East for missions tied to Operation Epic Fury, the US strikes on Iran.