Incomes the Spaatz Trophy for being the highest Air Nationwide Guard flying unit solely a month in the past, the 104th Fighter Squadron has now formally ceased operations.
On Sept. 22, 2025, joined on the Hagerstown Regional Airport by lots of of former Fairchild Republic staff, former check pilots, a hundred and seventy fifth Wing personnel, and household and followers, the museum held a retirement celebration for the Maryland Air Nationwide Guard’s A-10C Thunderbolt II 79-0087, certainly one of solely three remaining on the unit. The bittersweet homecoming noticed the A-10, piloted by Main Taylor “Snarf” Value, flying across the state of Maryland one remaining time. It then carried out a number of passes over the occasion’s crowd earlier than touchdown and being met with a water cannon salute by the airport fireplace division.
After taxiing by and shutting down the engines one remaining time, Maj. Value and -087’s crew chiefs, Tech. Sgt. Daniel Rodriguez and TSgt John McCullough, signed the plane and took half in a ceremony that symbolically handed the airplane over to the museum. The plane will now be demilitarized earlier than being positioned on show within the museum alongside its Fairchild kinfolk.
The Hagerstown Aviation Museum
Now residing on the identical manufacturing facility flooring that constructed every little thing from the PT-19 and C-119 to the A-10 and C-123, the Hagerstown Aviation Museum was solely not too long ago a small assortment of airplanes exterior within the components. In 2020, the museum moved into the Fairchild Flight Take a look at Hangar, higher referred to as the “dome hangar,” which opened in 1943. The museum now has their sights set on buying the neighboring hangar and need to elevate a further $3 million (USD) for the acquisition.
The museum’s assortment now contains many Fairchild, Fairchild Republic, and different producer’s airplanes together with a C-119 Flying Boxcar (the namesake of the native baseball staff), F-27 Friendship, C-82 Packet, RC-26 Condor, and certainly one of solely two experimental Fairchild XNQ trainers. The museum had lengthy been requested the query of once they’d get an A-10, and after loads of paperwork and ready, they lastly introduced 79-0087 residence. The museum additionally maintains three airworthy PT-19s, a PT-26, and a UC-61 which can be obtainable for rides.
The museum has marked 2025 by celebrating Fairchild’s one hundredth anniversary. An occasion was held final weekend with residing historical past shows, PT-19 and UC-61 rides, a giant band efficiency and dance, and a go to by A-10C 79-0087. Fairchild itself was based by Sherman Fairchild in Farmingdale, New York, in 1925 earlier than shifting to Hagerstown, Maryland in 1931. The manufacturing facility operated till 1984.
The 104th Fighter Squadron
The Maryland Air Nationwide Guard’s solely flying squadron, the “Fightin’ O’s” of the 104th Fighter Squadron hint their lineage again to 1921 and their operation of the venerable Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny.” The squadron was disbanded throughout World Battle II and its members unfold all through different bomber and reconnaissance items.
After World Battle II, the 104th was refounded and geared up with F-47 Thunderbolts. They’d go on to fly the F-51 Mustang, F-86 Sabre, and A-37 Dragonfly earlier than being geared up with the Maryland-built A-10A Thunderbolt II in 1979. The 104th would deploy a number of occasions in help of the World Battle on Terrorism to Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
The 104th Fighter Squadron was the primary to take the newly-upgraded A-10C into fight once they deployed to Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, in 2007. The unit previously shared its residence base of Warfield Air Nationwide Guard Base (Martin State Airport) with the one hundred and thirty fifth Airlift Squadron’s fleet of C-130H Hercules airlifters.
Now that each squadrons have been inactivated, the state of Maryland is now the one state with out an Air Nationwide Guard flying mission. Baltimore’s a hundred and seventy fifth Wing will now transition to a cyber mission, simply as Mansfield, Ohio’s 179th Airlift Wing did in 2023 after retiring their C-130H plane.
The a hundred and seventy fifth Wing
The ultimate two 104th Fighter Squadron A-10s retired on Sept. 23, after a squadron inactivation ceremony at Warfield Air Nationwide Guard Base, regardless of an earlier try at giving the DC Air Nationwide Guard’s F-16C/Ds to the unit in trade for shifting the Washington Commanders soccer staff inside DC metropolis limits. The ceremony additionally deactivated the a hundred and seventy fifth Upkeep Group and a hundred and seventy fifth Operation Group as neither might be required to function the brand new cyber mission.
On the shut of the ceremony, tails 79-0104 and 79-0175, the Squadron and Wing flagships, departed Warfield ANGB for the ultimate time. Each plane might be transferred to the Michigan Air Nationwide Guard’s 107th Fighter Squadron, which itself is scheduled to retire its A-10s quickly. The Michigan Air Nationwide Guard is scheduled to obtain brand-new F-15EX Eagle II fighters to enhance their also-scheduled KC-46A Pegasus refuelers.
In the meantime, the Thunderbolt II has stayed busy with routine deployments to the Center East and elsewhere on the planet. Even so, the 2 occasions in Maryland make it all-too-real that the period of the legendary A-10 “Warthog” is nearly at an finish.
