58 replies to this topic

[08Dawg]

Found this on another site and thought it might be of interest. Anybody heard anything about it?

New gunship flies to Paris Air Show debut
By
Stephen Trimble
on June 6, 2009 12:14 AM |
ShareThis
http://www.flightglo...e/AT-802U_2.jpg
http://www.flightglo...e/AT-802U_3.jpg
The Air Tractor AT-802U is now en route from Olney, Texas, to Le Bourget, France, to be unveiled at the Paris Air Show, said Lee Jackson, design engineer.

Featuring an armoured fuselage, a 10hr loiter time and the ability to haul more than 8,000lb of payload, unarmed AT-802Us have been operated by the US State Department in South America since 2002 eradicating drug crops, Jackson said.

Air Tractor is now offering the weaponized AT-802U Air Truck to the US Air Force and other militaries to serve as a a trainer/light attack fighter. After its international debut in Paris, the PT6A-67F-powered turboprop will
return to Olney for a series of wepaons and sensor integration trials, he said.

The AT-802U must overcome its stigma as an old-fashioned tail-dragger, but Jackson sees its lack of a tricycle landing gear as an advatange in the irregular warfare role. For lighly trained pilots forced to make hard landings on remote strips, the two main gears offer a great advantage, he said.

The aircraft may find its true niche in an operational setting like Afghanistan, he said. It's an interesting idea. The Afghans need a sturdy trainer and attack fighter. The ability to spray the Taliban's poppy fields might also come in handy. Apture™ Photos and promotional materials courtesy of Air Tractor

[MT near]

That thing is sick!!!!!

[StoleIt]

BAMF!

I remember dodging those stupid things when I was working as a Skydiving pilot. Those guys were fucking nuts...

[HU&W]

What a perfect CoIN aircraft. It's simple, agile, and would be pretty resiliant. Sure gives a whole new meaning to 'crop dusting'...

Found this after a quick google search on it... I love the wrench and screwdriver comment.

Quote

Built by Air Tractor, a premier designer and builder of crop dusting planes, the CAT is set to debut at the Paris Air Show coming up in the middle of this month. Built as a purpose-designed counter insurgency aircraft, the CAT sports extremely short take off and landing capability (150-200 feet) with very long loiter (10 hours with fuel bladders) and plenty of lift to carry rockets, GAUs and pods in expeditionary environments.

A source who’s flacking the plane tells me the main benefit is the plane’s lack of logistics footprint…”everything can be fixed with a wrench and screwdriver,” he said, eliminating the need for expensive spare parts, maintenance bays and teams of techs to keep the thing up and running.

The plane could provide low-cost, long-loiter CAS, convoy escort and FID missions for US troops, allies and contractors flying out of areas as small as battalion — or even company-level FOBS.

“This is about having breakfast with a convoy commander before launching to provide him with route recon, battlefield overwatch, and if necessary precise and withering fires on anything that gets in the way,” my source sent me.

I’m bullish on COIN aircraft and with a USAF chief of staff who’s keen on the idea of cheaper, longer loiter, less maintenance intensive aircraft for the current fight and for allies who can’t afford $10 million aircraft, this capability is going to be increasingly attractive.

Edited by HU&W, 07 June 2009 - 09:37 PM.

[Sim]

Modern version of IL-2?

http://en.wikipedia....i/Ilyushin_Il-2

[B*D*A]

Get some baby!

[60 driver]

HU&W, on Jun 7 2009, 09:29 PM, said:

What a perfect CoIN aircraft.

Well...

The 802 is a kick ass spray plane, (and Single Engine Air Tanker) and it hauls a shitload of weight. It's actually advertised as the world's largest single engine airplane, although I'm not sure about their measurement standard (AN-2?).

The guys who flew the 802 for my company when I was in Colombia loved it - but there were some significant differences in how we faced our mornings. As an OV-10 guy, I knew that I had two engines and an ejection seat, and if I got shot at, at 200 mph, I was likely to end up with 3 or 4 holes in the airplane max, and a pretty reasonable chance of getting back to the house under my own power. The Bronco had what I considered to be a decent amount of redundancy, and on a bad day, you needed all the redundancy you could get.




The 802 guys took off knowing that with their slow ass airspeed and 58 foot wingspan, if they got shot, they were going to continue to get shot until the guy on the ground got tired or ran out of ammo. If one got through the engine blanket, they were committed to stalling it into the jungle canopy and hoping our SAR guys could get there in time. More than once I met my buds at the airplane to see a hollywood-style row of holes punched through the wing, and one guy I know got shot down twice in the space of a month. Slow single engine airplanes aren't always the best idea over questionable territory.


edit: Finally found the video I was looking for. Not the best pictures for comparison, but just so you get an idea of how big that bitch actually is, compare where the wingtips are:





60 feet of wing, 120 knots, one engine and no ejection seat. And doesn't jink so well.

Great airplane for some things, COIN maybe not so much.

Edited by 60 driver, 11 June 2009 - 12:37 AM.

[Hacker]

This was better when it was called the Ayers Vigilante.

[The_Ginger]

All those old planes are proven....but they're old. You could pull 'em out of the boneyard, but if I was doing 60 driver's job, I'd like to have a new piece of iron to fly in. Air Tractors have been around a while...

[HOSS]

B*D*A, on Jun 7 2009, 10:28 PM, said:

Get some baby!

Make a living shooting down drug smuggler's? Sure! (Fast forward to about 1:50)

[Clayton Bigsby]

The_Ginger, on Jun 8 2009, 04:55 AM, said:

All those old planes are proven....but they're old. You could pull 'em out of the boneyard, but if I was doing 60 driver's job, I'd like to have a new piece of iron to fly in. Air Tractors have been around a while...

Presumably, the feeling is the OV-10s left are old. The only people still flying them actively are the US State dept, Colombia, Venezuela, and the Phillippines. So then with all this new fuss you get weird things like this...

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/...er-23-year.html

Quote

Boeing considers restarting OV-10 production after 23-year hiatus
By Stephen Trimble

Boeing is considering the possibility of restarting production of the OV-10 Bronco turboprop, a Vietnam-era light attack and observation aircraft last produced in 1976.

The company confirms that the OV-10 could be offered as either a light attack or intra-theatre light cargo aircraft for the US Air Force. The international market is also driving interest in the slow-flying aircraft, which blends some of the observational capabilities of a helicopter with the range of a fixed-wing aircraft.

Boeing has cited recent USAF interest in acquiring a light attack aircraft as a possible reason to revive OV-10 production.

Although known for its surveillance prowess, the OV-10 remains in combat service in four countries: Colombia (pictured below), Indonesia, the Philippines and Venezuela, with a weapons load at least equivalent to the Bell AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter. Some of those countries, and perhaps new customers, could seek remanufactured or new production OV-10s as their current fleets wear out.

So far, the USAF has not decided whether to buy a light attack fleet, known as the OA-X. But the Air National Guard will experiment later this year with the Beechcraft AT-6 Texan II. The USAF is also buying dozens of AT-6s on behalf of the Iraqi air force. The Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano and US Aircraft A-67 Dragon are also candidates for an OA-X order.

If the OA-X opportunity stalls, Boeing believes there could be interest in reviving the OV-10 as an intra-theatre transport for moving small groups of troops or medical services around the battlefield.

Boeing notes that the OV-10 revival idea is very preliminary. However, the company has created a marketing brochure, which has been circulated at defence industry events.

Unmanned air systems are being increasingly augmented by piloted aircraft for the persistent intelligence surveillance reconnaissance mission. The US Army and US Marine Corps have adapted the Shorts C-23B Sherpa with a wide-area surveillance sensor, and the USAF will deploy 37 MC-12W Project Liberty aircraft - modified Beechcraft King Air 350/350ERs, to augment unmanned operations.

The OV-10 has been considered for a similar role for several years. The Department of Defense contacted John Hodgson, president of the OV-10 Bronco Association, a few years ago to inquire about fleet availability.

Hodgson is not surprised by the rising interest in the observation platform. "It doesn't make any difference how good your UAV is," he says. "Nothing replaces a couple of eyeballs on a head that moves around."

[SocialD]

Bring it back!

Edited by SocialD, 08 June 2009 - 09:41 AM.

[HiFlyer]

gonzo, on Jun 8 2009, 07:42 AM, said:

I can't figure out why they are always looking to re-invent the wheel when it comes to this type of aircraft. How many Skyraiders are sitting in the desert? How many OV-10s are still in flying condition? Seems like it would be cheaper and take a lot less effort to just bring back a design that does the same thing as what we are looking for in a "new" plane. Sure, an armed crop-duster would be the shit, but why are they looking for new designes and ideas if there are already aircraft around that fit the bill?

THe OVs that are left are very hard to maintain...they're about 40 years old and I'm told parts are very hard to find (needing special buys that drive the costs up and out of sight). There are a few we sold to others still flying, but they would be hard to get back since they're in use and fairly effective for the mission those countries use them for. They don't want to give them up without something to replace them, and if we're going to do that (replace them), why not just keep the new ones and let them keep the old ones. The Skyraiders are even worse, since most of them are around 60 years old! I think they'd be money ahead in the long run to buy a new airframe with modern engines and avionics.

[Hacker]

polyfan5435, on Jun 9 2009, 02:12 AM, said:

A private contractor approached Air Tractor and suggested the concept of the AT-802U.
They backed out of it, but Air Tractor hopes to sell some still to some of our allies.

It would be cheaper than most ground-support aircraft, and would have parts available because it is in production.

Good luck on that one. Two decades ago, the same thing happened to Dave Lindsay -- the guy who spent millions of his own $ developing, building, and testing the aircraft that ended up as the Piper PA-48 Enforcer. Google it -- it was a kick-ass turboprop COIN airplane designed around the P-51 airframe, and it would have completely embarassed the AT-6B, the Super Tucano, and the A-67 (or whatever it's being called these days).



Maj Gen Barry Goldwater prompted him to develop the thing in the first place, and he spent the next 15 years trying to get the USAF to buy it. In the end he lost 100% of his investment, his companies folded, and he never constructed another airplane. All because the major defense contractors used their lobbying power and the fast-jet Generals at TAC couldn't stomach the idea of a prop-driven taildragger made by a non "military-industrial" manufacturer.

EDIT: Fixed the name of the A-67.

Edited by Hacker, 09 June 2009 - 03:01 AM.

[busdriver]

polyfan5435, on Jun 8 2009, 07:21 PM, said:

Skyraiders were not designed to 'loiter' either IIRC.

Oh really?

[HiFlyer]

busdriver, on Jun 9 2009, 10:19 AM, said:

Oh really?

Yeh, they could loiter just fine with their internal fuel and a big belly tank. In fact, the limiting factor, as I recall, was oil, not fuel. The old PW radials used lots of it. The airplane carried a 32 GALLON oil tank, and usually ran out of oil before the gas was gone. I think an eight hour mission was not an unusual mission for the Spads at Danang. Of course, they were a little slow so a lot of that was coming and going, but they could probably put 6-7 hours over target in most situations, maybe more.