Ever wonder what happens to unexpended ammunition rounds downloaded from A-10 Thunderbolts—more familiarly called Warthogs? The Air Force uses a GFU-7 machine—called the Dragon—to separate brass from the ammo, returning unused rounds to a container to be reloaded. Playing the statistics game, the 455th Munitions Flight, Bagram AB, Afghanistan, estimates that, since Sept. 15 it has “expended” more than 23,000 rounds of 30 mm ammo, 15,000 countermeasures, 103 rockets, 14 500-pound air burst bombs, and nine laser-guided bombs.
Lockheed Martin projects more than a billion dollars of losses on a classified program, but company officials said April 23 they are confident it will turn profitable by 2028 and become a "franchise" system in the U.S. military.