Can you say. . .F-111?
Jokes were a part of Hog life. We were never offended and even passed them along as well. We knew what we could do.
We have a triple redundant flight control system in the A-10. . .primary hydraulics, secondary and then manual reversion (mechanical cables and push rods). And the mechanical cables and push rods were not redundant or ‘dual,’ it was a last ditch way to fly the jet back to safe territory and then bail, though some recovered in Gulf Wars.
Mechanical cables and push rods are hard to use as you are fighting the airstream and HEAVY control surfaces.
SAC guys controlled the early USAF until the fighter Mafia rolled in around post-vietnam. While many ‘hated’ the jets they always respected what it could do. When you fight as hard as you can to graduate pilot training and be fighter-rated, then instead of a sexy F-16 (at the time) you get a Hog. . .some hated that. . .until they got to the jet. Once there they became the most loyal Hog Drivers ever.
Decades later, especially after Gulf War I, the ‘generals’ understood the jet and respected it and its mission (we have USAF troops on the ground as well). The hard-core A-10 haters are simply nowhere to be seen now. What is happening now is budgets and single-mission vs multi-mission argument.
Multi-mission is winning the accounting argument and sngle-mission is winning real-world battles. Guess who controls the budgets?
Yes, but if you read the text to which I refer, the USAF did not even want the F16 either; they did not have any affinity for lightweight fighters. The 16 and the A-10 were something that Boyd ramrodded through, thank goodness.
I understand the need for dual purpose, but you cannot sell short the CAS mission. And there isn’t much air to air in the foreseeable future. You will probably say China and Russia, but those scenarios, while possible, are unlikely. The need for CAS is ever present and not to be left to distant bombers or drones.
I'd rather have single-mission; it only makes sense to have your tools specialized to the task at hand. (I've actually had some arguments about this mindset WRT my day job programming; seems like my fellow programmers are mostly married to the idea of "general purpose" text-files/file-systems rather than special-purpose DB/IDEs.)
You could get a LOT done with F-22s providing air-superiority, A-10s doing CAS, and Infantry w/ Arty support.
But it's not like my opinion matters, in either case.