AF Light Air Support Aircraft

[FourFans]

On 10/10/2022 at 5:20 PM, ClearedHot said:

A big ole FU to CAA community!

If you ever wondered how senior USAF leadership views your contributions, now you have it in writing.

Pretty sure you owe beer for posting that ass-hat's name.

[LookieRookie]

So I thought Slife was going to be the HAF/A3 to replace Gus, did something derail that?

[Clark Griswold]

Meanwhile in Mexico...

Light attack in action:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/mexican-light-attack-plane-strafes-cartel-forces-after-arrest-of-el-chapos-son

[slapticles]

Any updates on the AO stuff? Heard some rumors about the Air Tractors design problems.

[Lawman]

Meanwhile in Mexico...
Light attack in action:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/mexican-light-attack-plane-strafes-cartel-forces-after-arrest-of-el-chapos-son

Im not sure if I could be less impressed with the weight of fire for its guns….

M3P was a bandaid fix because the M2s were literally falling apart and the GAU wasn’t really giving the range necessary to justify its ammo consumption. Yeah it’s a .50 just like the M2, but it barely out ranges a 7.62 and it was putting some level of throw weight on an aircraft that was never intended to be armed in the first place, so something better than nothing. It’s a defensive suppression system masquerading as an offensive piece of firepower and it would have been a bigger gun if the overgrown news helicopter it was designed to support could have held it.

Don’t limit yourselves. You are going into a fight with less throw weight than a WWII/Korea era aircraft, in a profile that forces you to live in a wez you lack the redundant Survivability to successfully negotiate when compared to those older aircraft. Sexy < Stand-off/survivable. I’m curious how many majors were gonna lose flying these profiles before we relearn something we knew with the A-1 Skyraider.


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[Clark Griswold]

Im not sure if I could be less impressed with the weight of fire for its guns….

M3P was a bandaid fix because the M2s were literally falling apart and the GAU wasn’t really giving the range necessary to justify its ammo consumption. Yeah it’s a .50 just like the M2, but it barely out ranges a 7.62 and it was putting some level of throw weight on an aircraft that was never intended to be armed in the first place, so something better than nothing. It’s a defensive suppression system masquerading as an offensive piece of firepower and it would have been a bigger gun if the overgrown news helicopter it was designed to support could have held it.

Don’t limit yourselves. You are going into a fight with less throw weight than a WWII/Korea era aircraft, in a profile that forces you to live in a wez you lack the redundant Survivability to successfully negotiate when compared to those older aircraft. Sexy < Stand-off/survivable. I’m curious how many majors were gonna lose flying these profiles before we relearn something we knew with the A-1 Skyraider.

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Concur
Shoot them with a sniper rifle when they have a pistol and win with less risk to you.  
The economics of direct fire weapon utilization are outweighed ultimately in the risk of loss of platforms, not saying take the guns off jets but in the long run it's better TTPs to just use the 100k Hellfire and shoot from 5 NM out.
 
Gratuitous vapor plane porn for your morning and what fills a hole (sts) in the air to mud requirements.

Scorpion like render with additional features that might make it more palatable to the Bobs as it could be incorporated into O-plans as a supporting platform (arsenal platform, jammer, comm node, anti-uav, etc..). 
Give it range to be a low or no draw on AR resources, ACE capabilities and some reasonable self-defensive capabilities.
Now you have the manned platform for SOF support and the gap filler for the big fight, profit.
 

[KState_Poke22]

On 9/6/2023 at 11:06 PM, slapticles said:

Any updates on the AO stuff? Heard some rumors about the Air Tractors design problems.

From what I’ve heard it’s not anything that will affect end state timelines. It’s delays trying to get it IFR certified. 

[ClearedHot]

On 10/13/2022 at 9:17 PM, LookieRookie said:

So I thought Slife was going to be the HAF/A3 to replace Gus, did something derail that?

He currently is the HAF/A3....BUT has been nominated to be VCSAF.  Waiting on Tuberville and the Sentate.

[LookieRookie]

8 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

He currently is the HAF/A3....BUT has been nominated to be VCSAF.  Waiting on Tuberville and the Sentate.

Blast from the past. I posted that a year ago

[Skitzo]

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/slow-down-armed-overwatch-until-socom-justifies-fleet-gao-says/


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[brabus]

For the SOC guys, is 75 too many? It seems high, given the nature of the mission, and I understand max number is always better given a perfect world, but we’re far from a perfect world.

[Danger41]

What isn’t addressed in that article but I’m convinced is really happening is that other entities with SOCOM didn’t do their due diligence when initial requirements went out, didn’t like the requirements that were set (bell had already been rung), went to the hill and all their fanboys in congress to get their way, and here we are. This program is not a U-28 replacement and they don’t want to lose that capability and gain what OA-1K offers.

BL - SOCOM money avalanche from GWOT is done and now the knives are coming out.

[Danger41]

5 minutes ago, brabus said:

For the SOC guys, is 75 too many? It seems high, given the nature of the mission, and I understand max number is always better given a perfect world, but we’re far from a perfect world.

At least in the U-28, the fleet was shared between at home units and deployed sites so squadrons never really owned iron in a traditional sense (to include FTU/OT/DT/WIC…all shared). I may have old data but they were actually assigning aircraft more traditionally and the 75 made sense. That probably also assumes GWOT commitment levels so may be a logical fallacy given current time. 

[raimius]

Well, the AF never buys too few aircraft...

[Biff_T]

On 12/17/2023 at 6:43 PM, raimius said:

Well, the AF never buys too few aircraft...

Lol

[Guest nsplayr]

Congress: Best I can do is 25 and a couple slicks for pilot pro 😆

[Clark Griswold]

https://www.twz.com/air/first-oa-1k-skyraider-ii-handed-over-to-air-force-special-operations-command
 

 

[Hacker]

It was out at the Nellis airshow this last weekend.

[Bumpass Ball]

13 hours ago, Hacker said:

It was out at the Nellis airshow this last weekend.

Interesting, that cockpit is significantly less Gucci than what was previously shown off.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/aviation/garmin-aviation-tech-featured-in-sky-warden-a-u-s-special-forces-combat-aircraft/

[Arkbird]

1 hour ago, Bumpass Ball said:

Interesting, that cockpit is significantly less Gucci than what was previously shown off.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/aviation/garmin-aviation-tech-featured-in-sky-warden-a-u-s-special-forces-combat-aircraft/

I have a buddy who's with OKC guard and he sent a picture of the cockpit. It looks like the bottom picture, not the top one so I don't know what's going on with the one at the Nellis air show.

[Lawman]

I have a buddy who's with OKC guard and he sent a picture of the cockpit. It looks like the bottom picture, not the top one so I don't know what's going on with the one at the Nellis air show.

Is it normal for manufacturers stickers to be all over your aircraft? I’ve seen data plates on mil aircraft but that looks more like an add.

This looks what is really an N number airplane masquerading in a paint scheme for whatever potential customer or testing needs to be generated. Identical from a core airframe perspective but since it’s not like air tractor isn’t in foreign air forces they aren’t sticking mission equipment in it some Qatari or Phil Air Force General is just going to assume they get with their money.


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[Hacker]

1 hour ago, Lawman said:

This looks what is really an N number airplane masquerading in a paint scheme for whatever potential customer or testing needs to be generated. Identical from a core airframe perspective but since it’s not like air tractor isn’t in foreign air forces they aren’t sticking mission equipment in it some Qatari or Phil Air Force General is just going to assume they get with their money.

According to the press releases, the aircraft in all the OKC photos is 22-0006, "Hobo 61". Here's a quote from the press release:

Quote

Here is the AT-802U training aircraft for the program, serial number 22-0006 as "Hobo61", on the approach for the touch and go at KOKC on 11 September 2024. Presently, only two AT-802Us have been delivered for airframe familiarization and training, including training traditional tricycle-style landing gear pilots how to fly and land the tail-dragger aircraft.

The aircraft at Nellis was clearly serial 22-0007, and had "Hobo 71" on the instrument panel in both cockpits.

So, it follows that this is the second USAF aircraft as mentioned in the press release...not a company demonstrator with an N reg for Foreign Military Sales.

 

Edited Friday at 05:18 AM by Hacker

[viper154]

Before I left AFSOC there was some concern about the tricycle to tail wheel training for pilots. There was also an aggressive timeline to get initial cadre and schoolhouse start up. If I were to guess, they are starting out with a training model like the PC-12/U-28. Get a couple birds that aren’t FMC with sensors/toys to get initial cadre seat time. Will allow 11-2 series, 3-3, and syllabus development for IQ/Inst checkrides. If desired once software is working properly and integrated they can plug and play all the toys in or keep these initial birds slick as trainers. 
 

U-28 schoolhouse you never touched a U-28 until you had a IQ/Inst checkride in a PC-12. 

[Hacker]

1 hour ago, viper154 said:

Before I left AFSOC there was some concern about the tricycle to tail wheel training for pilots.

The people with those concerns should have been laughed out of the room.

Buy a couple of Super Cubs, Decathlons, or any number of GA airplanes, and teach people to fly taildraggers. It is done every day with low-time GA pilots in a couple hours.

[Clark Griswold]

From the article 

Exactly how and where the OA-1K might be used in an operational context remains to be seen, especially as the focus of the current Trump administration seems to be much less on Africa and other areas of lower-intensity conflict.
 

This is the conundrum.  Can you have a cheap(er) manned platform that has some relevance to supporting the Big Fights but can prosecute the Small Fights on its own?

Rhetorical question and I won’t plug the Scorpion for the umpteenth time but this is how to get a light strike bought in numbers.