A Weekend with the “Fighting O’s”
Story and photos by Andrew Spry
With the 175th Wing stepping down from a flying mission and transitioning to an expanded cyber mission, I decided to make the trip down to Martin State Airport for the 104th Fighter Squadron’s drill weekend. A-10’s have been a common sight in the skies above Martin State Airport since 1979 when the A-10A first came into service with the Maryland Air National Guard with new airframes coming straight from Fairchild Republic factory in Hagerstown, MD. In 2007, 28 years after the A-10A joined the MD ANG, the A-10 modernization program brought the squadron A-10C’s capable of dropping precision ordnance. That very same year, the 104th FS was the first squadron to deploy with the A-10C seeing combat in Iraq. Now in 2025, the USAF is in the process of divesting its A-10 fleet. Unfortunately, this means the 104th FS will divest all of its aircraft by September of this year.
Friday, June 6th started off with the Maryland State Troopers returning from a morning flight to refuel before heading back out. After an hour or so of waiting, the engines finally started turning on the Warthogs. The first flight to leave was ‘Axeman’ flight that was vectored over the Chesapeake Bay down to Richmond Intl. Airport. The next flight that left as ‘Raven’ flight had a pair of travel pods under the fuselage and were leaving for the weekend to be static display at some airshow. The final flight of the day left as ‘Colt’ flight that headed up north. Only 4 out of the 6 jets returned later in the afternoon with ‘Colt’ flight having unrestricted use of the airspace for a short while.
Saturday June 7th was the better of the two days with the A-10’s taking off towards us. ‘Axeman’ flight was the first two ship to leave to head to the Warren Grove Gunnery Range. ‘Colt’ and ‘Aggressor’ flights went up as a four ship to the Bollen Air-to-Ground Range at Fort Indiantown Gap. This flight also happened to be Col. Paul Kanning’s fini flight as “Colt 0-1” flying the wing aircraft. After the gun runs at Bollen, they returned to Martin State and did an overhead break followed by quite a few low approaches. Upon Col. Kanning landing and taxiing back to Warfield ANGB’s ramp, he was met with a water cannon salute, friends and family on the ramp, and a celebration in one of the hangars.
