Night Adverce Weather A-10

In 1978 Fairchild Republic (FR) reveled plans for a night attack, adverse weather two seat A-10 in the hopes of increasing sale of the Warthog to the USAF. This self funded project would show the increased capabilities possible with the addition of a radar pod, flir pod, and a second crew member to help with the workload and operate the complex systems. The Air Force donated the first pre-production DT&E aircraft for modification by FR into the two seat NAWs A-10.

Let me explain and clarify something here at the beginning because, I have heard rumors and "old wives tales" of two, three, and even up to five two-seat A-10s being built. There was ONE, and only ONE two-seat A-10 ever built and its tail number was/is 73-1664!

A total of 715 A-10s were built by Fairchild Republic from 1971-1982, two YA-10As in 1971 (71-0669 and 71-0670), which competed in the fly-off with the A-9. Six pre-production aircraft, to be used for Design, Testing, and Evaluation (DT&E) in 1973 (73-1664 thru 73-1669) and 707 production A-10s from 1975-1982. The two-seat NAWs aircraft was built from the first of these DT&E aircraft tail number 73-1664.

The six pre-production aircraft were later reclassified as production aircraft in 1978 after all testing was completed which brought the total production aircraft numbers to 713.

I have complied a complete a listing of all 715 A-10s built (no I can release it) and can account for each and every one, so I feel safe in saying there was one, and only one, two-seat A-10 built. Unless there was/is a very large conspiracy involving the USAF and Fairchild Republic to hide crashed two-seat A-10s, you can take my word as gospel!

Whew, now that's out of the way lets continue. As you can see in the official FR newsletter "New Thunder" (below) they announced the project in the summer of 1978. The second newsletter below shows the NAWs at the Farmingdale plant in NY being retrofitted with its new two-seat nose section and a larger (by 21 inches) vertical stab .

The third and fourth newsletter announces the first flight of the two-seater on May 4th 1979.

The next few newsletters document the testing (and promotion) of the NAWs through out 1979 and into early 1980. In the end the AF was not interested in a night attack A-10 nor a two-seat trainer. There are lots of rumors and opinions on why the AF decided against the two-seat A-10 but when all is said and done, they did, and the program went dormant in 1980 but, didn't completely die... not yet anyway!

Note - I have my own opinions, and I've heard a lot of the rumors on why the AF didn't buy the NAWs aircraft, if you ever want to talk about it, or hear some of the rumors, feel free to come to the forums and we can discuss it there.

As I said the program didn't die when the AF rejected the concept because in 1982 Fairchild Republic responded to a "letter of interest" form a small Middle Eastern country named The United Arab Emirates or UAE. As you can see from the documents below the USAF backed the program and it seemed on track but again, in the end, it died also.

The story I've heard (rumor) is the UAE was not really interested in the program from the start because the AF did not buy the aircraft... so nether were they! For whatever reason the UAE didn't purchase the NAWs A-10 and the program died around 1982.

The only two seat A-10 now sits at Edwards AFB CA. The aircraft has been restored and placed in the Edwards aviation museum
Special thanks to "Dutchy" (Eric) for the pictures below. These were taken in 2007 and show the aircraft as it looks today.