Fortunately for the A-10, David – and for reasons I don’t fully understand – the Congress has saved it multiple times even codifying the effort. I’m absolutely certain there are grunts alive today because of it. Somebody likes it, fortunately.
“T-29 and C-131’s” … you’re dating yourself 
I flew aboard the Samaritans to test the offshore ranges at Vandenburg AFB during my early years at Edwards. CALSPAN in Buffalo had a C-131 modified w/ T-56 engines that was a brute. Called the TIFS (Total In Flight Simulator), it had two noses (one a test cockpit) and the whole airplane was filled with computers to make it fly and act like something else. E.G., the B-2 was first flown using the TIFS airplane. That TIFS is now in the NMUSAF in Dayton. AND … did you know that during the ‘shell game’ missile basing days idea in the 70s’s, we yanked an ICBM out of a C-5A at the Nat’l Parachute Test Range at NAS El Centro?