Eras Ending

March 12, 2026

Maryland Air National Guard - Martin State Airport

As the 2026 air show season starts ramping up, I’m already feeling a sense of nostalgia about the end of the 2025 activities and a number of the aircraft populating those memories.

It’s inevitable that as aviation technology advances, once state-of-the-art aircraft become relics of the past. That point was driven home when I was at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia last year. On my many visits to the base, anxious to either arrive and get set up or to wrestle with the traffic in departure, I had always driven right past the Aviation Historical Park. But not this time. After the practice flight for 2025 NAS Oceana Air Show I parked by a long grove of trees. There, under the shelter of branches and no longer leaping into the skies, a noble collection of historic aircraft stands guard. I had always felt a twinge of guilt just driving right by these jets; it was a good feeling to erase that sensation with a long appreciative walk through their domain. Ironically, the Grumman A-6 Intruder on display had been based on board the USS John F. Kennedy, the supercarrier decommissioned in 2007 after forty years of service. In early 2025 the ship was towed from Philadelphia’s Naval Yard – passing just a few blocks from Aerospace Perceptions headquarters near the Delaware River in Historic New Castle.

Within days of my historic encounter at Oceana, I found myself at Martin State Airport in Middle River, Maryland. There, the Maryland Air National Guard hosted an inactivation ceremony on September 23, 2025, for the A-10 and the A-10C Thunderbolt II flying mission. A-10 aircraft had been based there for over four decades, but now with the service life of the A-10s reaching the end of their lifespan, flight operations are being consolidated. On this day, the last two A-10s were taking off from their home at Martin State for the final time. Soon the A-10 will be a historic relic, like its brethren along the main thoroughfare at Oceana, Tomcat Boulevard. In fact, one of the A-10s that had been based at Martin State has already been incorporated into the impressive inventory of the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base.

I hope you’ll enjoy this look at some of these aircraft as photographed at both locations.