What appeals to me about the A-10 is that it is 'focused' design. It is designed around a single use case (around a single weapon really), and everything is to that single end. This makes it incredibly good at that single job, and as long as that purpose still exists (and close air support is likely to continue to be needed) the A-10 will continue to be in demand.

I too would love to fly one and I'm not a pilot of any kind! Not only aren't civilians permitted (to the best of my knowledge) to fly military aircraft, there are no 2-seater A-10s. This means that your first time flying it, you're doing it solo.

This is more to draw attention to an unusual fact than any desire to "correct" you, but a single two-seater was built: http://www.airvectors.net/ava10_1.html#m7

It was a single prototype. One of my minor claims to fame in life is that I worked with a guy who was a test pilot, and actually flew in this aircraft.

Of course, your larger point stands however, and general there's no "type conversion" craft like you see in other two-seaters for this purpose. That said, if you had a solid flight background in other types of aircraft, it'd be unlikely that you'd have issues in the A-10. It's reportedly an easy craft to fly, there's little peculiarities that would give a pilot issues like you see in some high-performance craft. Straight wing, low landing speed, no built-in aerodynamic instabilities or anything like that.

Awesome! Thanks for the correction! I think it would still be a true statement to say that 99.9% of A-10 pilots have their first flight in a one-seater flying solo.