I still question the Air Force doing it at all if the F-35 is the answer. How long could the F-35 have stayed above the troops that night? The gun capacity is just awful.
Gun capacity on an A10 isn't that hot either. The sex appeal of the GAU is great, but it only has a shade over 1k rounds, and those go by pretty quickly.
What's really interesting is looking at the data; the majority of CAS missions in Afghanistan were performed by the B-1, hardly what comes to mind when you picture that aircraft. But it has high speed, packs a ton of munitions, and has the ability to persist for a long time over the battlespace.
What vacuum do you think military aviation operates in? Honestly. The A-10 will loiter for an hour or two at most depending on loadout. The F-35 will do about the same.
Loiter time isn't as big of a variable as people make it out to be. We'll just throw more assets into the mix. What matters is getting there fast to be able to actually impact the fight in a meaningful way.
