Is it possible to build new A-10’s? Does the tooling still exist?
No,No.
They did it with the C-5, they can do it for the A-10 if need be.
It isn't necessary to build new A-10s. We have all we will ever need sitting in the boneyard at Davis Monthan.
We don't need the tooling, either. Recently the still active A-10s needed to have their wings replaced, and it was Boeing that won the contract to design and manufacture new wings. The wing kits were installed by USAF personnel during routine Depot level maintenance.
1st lets find the original plans, I doubt they were destroyed. With that said, we are in a new era of CAD/CAM and a ton of manufacturing technologies such was water jetting, elastic superforming of aluminum, let alone printing parts.
I see no reason why a Lockheed F-117 type Kelly Johnson Mgt Style Group couldn't be spun up to make parts from CAD models drawn up from copying the original plans, and then you could hand it to the CAM side above even in small quantities. Once one is done and the learning curve figured out, why not make more if Uncle Sugar will pay for the spare parts. LIRP, Low initial rate of production.
Probably not. The A-10 was built in the 1970s by a very famous aircraft manufacturer, Fairchild-Republic, that not longer exists. The production jigs were probably scrapped decades ago.
You could probably reverse engineer one using existing aircraft and parts as templates. A lot of time and money. But you would inevitably run into the “better is the enemy of good enough” syndrome as various improvements to the design were put forward. And why would you resist incorporating them?
It is sort of like the Australian billionaire that is building a replica of the Titanic in China. In all the public places, it will look like the Titanic. In all the engineering spaces, bridge, propulsion plant, navigation equipment, etc. it will be a 21st century ship.
Returning to the new build A-10, it might externally resemble the original aircraft and would certainly incorporate the titanium bathtub for the pilot and the massive 30mm cannon but it would also incorporate all the lessons the Air Force has learned in operating it and a lot of new technology insertions.
Probably incorporate new engines and avionics at a minimum. If things get way out of hand, you get a stealth version that looks sort of like a really strange looking straight winged, twin engine F-35.
Essentially, it would be a new aircraft and would have to go through full developmental and operational testing. A lot of time and money.
Then the question would be how many to produce, how much will it cost, and what does the Air Force give up to produce them?