First an AT-6...

[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 |

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http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/AT-802U_2.jpg

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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.

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 June 8, 2009 by HU&W

[Sim]

Modern version of IL-2?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-2

[B*D*A]

Get some baby!

[60 driver]

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 June 11, 2009 by 60 driver

[Hacker]

This was better when it was called the Ayers Vigilante.

[Guest gonzo]

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?

[HoHum]

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...

[Clayton Bigsby]

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

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 June 8, 2009 by SocialD

[Guest polyfan5435]

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.

[HiFlyer]

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.

[Guest polyfan5435]

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.

Not to mention the Skyraiders are radials... nothing against them, but there is a reason radials aren't produced very much any more. Skyraiders were not designed to 'loiter' either IIRC.

[Hacker]

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 June 9, 2009 by Hacker

[busdriver]

Skyraiders were not designed to 'loiter' either IIRC.

Oh really?

[HiFlyer]

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.

[Guest Pave Hawk Gunner]

I might know of a company who might be developing a PC-7 for CAS use......

US based.

[DeHavilland]

Last time I was at DM, I don't recall seeing a bunch of Spad's sitting around waiting to be refurbished. Same with OV-10's. The CA Forestry Service grabbed some OV-10's for spotters for water drops back in the 90's after the AF and Marines parked their acft.

There is a guy who just imported a Spad from France and had it confiscated by big brother. Nice looking acft that flew back with lots of spare parts. Search the web for the story.

[contraildash]

I've always enjoyed the Tucanos tearing it up in this video (3:40 is the good stuff):

[Spoo]

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).

This bird now resides in the Air Force museum at WPAFB. It's over in the Experimental and Presidential a/c hangar.

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.

I think I know where the oil went...

Edited June 10, 2009 by Spoo

[M2]

***THREAD REVIVAL***

An update (sort of)...

Cheers! M2

Air Force Eyes 'Mud Fighters' for Afghanistan, Maybe

When infantry grunts are being hard-pressed by an enemy they can't reach -- maybe taking lethal mortar fire from the other side of a ridgeline -- there's almost no better feeling than seeing the United States Air Force show up.

Filthy, sweaty and thirsty, the ground pounders gawk upwards at those shiny silver darts carrying freshly showered pilots in air-conditioned cockpits. The planes scream down in glorious arcs of manly killing power, loosing on the bad guys 500-pounders whose fireballs and ka-WUMP! Ka -RUMP! detonations you feel in your chest and eyeballs.

And then silence falls like a weight: the zoomies gone as fast as they came, and everybody praying fervently, Hope they got 'em all, and, Wish they could stick around.

They can't. Firefights in Afghanistan today last minutes. Insurgents typically ambush a U.S. convoy or patrol with roadside bombs, then strike hard with rifle fire and rockets, and disappear before the Air Force can get there.

One reason the Air Force can't always be there, or stay there, is that Afghanistan is a big place and there are a limited number of airplanes. A second reason is that the airplanes the Air Force sends into Afghanistan are expensive, gas-guzzling jets built for high altitude and high speed. The F-15s that fly out of Bagram air field cost $15,879 an hour to operate. Trolling for insurgents at low altitude burns gas. Pilots constantly have to break away to refuel, leaving ground troops on their own.

"The thing that really holds us back is 'loiter time,''' Air Force Lt. Col. Doug "Cinqo'' DeMaio told me. He's an F-16 pilot and fighter squadron commander, and by "loiter'' he meant the amount of time he can idle in the sky waiting for an urgent request from the ground. "We end up dong a lot of yo-yo ops,'' he said -- zooming away to rendezvous with a tanker and zooming back to be on call.

With anger and frustration mounting for both airmen and infantry, it seems relevant to ask why the Air Force doesn't reach back to a solution that worked decades ago.

During the Vietnam War, the Air Force sent into battle several different models of low-cost, low-altitude, low-speed airplanes designed to float over the battlefield, help coordinate the ground troops, and occasionally attack the enemy. The grunts and pilots sometimes called them, admiringly, "mud fighters.''

These planes, among them the OV-10 and the A-1 Skyraider, could loiter for hours over the battlefield, working closely with the ground commander and sometimes even landing nearby so the pilot and infantrymen could bend over a map and plan in detail -- a benefit not easily available to today's jets that streak in from afar.

"We're not part of the planning at the tactical level'' with ground commanders, DeMaio said. "I know I could fit my airplane into their maneuver scheme, but we don't do that.''

The idea of reviving the "mud fighter" was being quietly kicked around by a few experienced officers deep inside the Air Force when Gen. Norton Schwartz got wind of it.

Schwartz is Air Force Chief of Staff, its highest uniformed officer. Significantly, he comes with a special operations background and not from the fighter pilot community, which has in recent years provided most Air Force leaders.

Special operators are known as creative innovators. When Schwartz publicly endorsed the idea of getting back into the mud fighter business, people noticed.

Within weeks, the Air Force's Air Combat Command asked industry to weigh in on the idea of building 100 light aircraft for attack and reconnaissance. In its July 2009 "Request for Information,'' the Air Combat Command said the planes should have long loiter time and carry sophisticated sensors and encrypted data links as well as bombs, rockets and other weapons.

According to Robert Day, director for irregular warfare for the Air Force, the idea was for a light, inexpensive aircraft, easy to fly and easy to maintain. "We are trying to put together a two-person aircraft that can find, fix and finish in one package,'' he said, meaning to locate, identify and kill the enemy.

"This is a whole culture shift for the Air Force,'' Day said in an interview at the Pentagon. Until now, he explained, "we were basically building the Air Force for Armageddon (thermonuclear war). Now we're converting the way the Air Force does business to irregular warfare'' in addition to its other missions. "People put blinders on and that's what they know and they know it really well. We're trying to open those blinders up.''

Moreover, he added, there is resistance to the idea of "mud fighters'' from the tight-knit community of jet fighter zealots within the Pentagon and the aerospace industry.

The Air Force and the other military services are uneasy conglomerates of smaller communities, each convinced that its doctrine and weapons hold the key to victory. Their ongoing struggles play out as budgets are fought over at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. In the Army, the infantry and armor branches compete; the Navy's surface warfare sailors, submariners and aviators squabble, and in the Air Force, advocates of fighters vie with advocates of bombers, among others.

The fighter community just lost a bruising fight to buy more F-22 supersonic stealth fighters (nixed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates) and is now in a battle to preserve plans for a massive, multibillion dollar buy of the new F-35 Joint Strike fighter. Entirely unwelcome, at a time of tight budgets, would be another aircraft program and especially one featuring the unglamorous "mud fighters'' that the Air Force dumped unceremoniously as soon as the U.S. involvement in Vietnam ended.

In pushing the idea of the mud fighter, "We are fighting the fighter mafia,'' Day told me, repeating solemnly, "We are fighting the fighter mafia on this.''

Sure enough, since Air Combat Command asked industry about mud fighters in July, the program seems to have been swallowed whole by the Air Force's vast bureaucracy. One of the companies that responded to the Air Force request was Air Tractor of Olney, Texas, which has produced crop dusters for 50 years -- but also builds light, armored airplanes that the State Department uses for drug crop eradication in Latin America.

"They get hit almost every time they go out, but they've got cockpit armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, so they're well protected,'' Air Tractor's Lee Jackson assured me, when I asked if the light planes would be safe in Afghanistan. "Loiter time is over 10 hours and we're half the price of the competition,'' he added.

The problem is, Jackson said, even as the fighting in Afghanistan reaches a crescendo, the "mud fighter'' program seems to have gone into limbo. "In truth, there's no real direction on where the Air Force is, or we haven't been able to tell which direction they're gonna go in,'' Jackson told me. He asked me to let him know if I heard anything.

But Air Combat Command officials refused for weeks to explain the status of the program. After repeated badgering, officials finally issued a statement that said the aircraft, if any are purchased, are "envisioned'' to be used to train U.S. pilots to work with Third World countries to fight their own battles with insurgents, but might be used to "inform any future program the Air Force or other Services may decide to pursue.''

No indication of when the idea might actually move forward.

If the Air Combat Command seems reluctant to move forward, Air Force Headquarters doesn't. Last month, at the request of Air Force Headquarters' strategic planning division, the Air Force-funded RAND think tank completed a study of irregular warfare (i.e. Afghanistan) with senior Air Force officers. The study concluded that the Air Force better get into that business with at least 100 mud fighters, quickly.

The RAND study said the Air Force must be prepared for "continued heavy involvement'' in air operations over Iraq and Afghanistan for five to 10 years. Using F-15s and F-16s in those wars is only wearing out the limited inventory of those aircraft, RAND said, using an argument that might appeal to the fighter mafia.

The Air Force, RAND added in a scolding tone, "must inculcate an IW [irregular warfare] mindset in USAF culture and to ensure that IW has a top priority.''

There's been no Air Force reaction to the RAND study.

Meantime in Afghanistan this week, Air Force aircraft that were designed during the Cold War were scrambling to try to support ground troops under fire. Air Force F-15s bombed enemy forces that had attacked a convoy near Asadabad, while a cluster of F-15s, F-16s and one B-1 bomber bombed insurgents attacking in western Afghanistan, and F-15s shot off flares near Bagram air base to deter an attack.

No mud fighters were on the scene. But stay tuned.

Edited April 12, 2010 by M2
Formatting F'ed Up!

[Guest Alarm Red]

I find it troubling that Mr. Day, the USAF director for irregular warfare, is publicly stating that his camp is 'fighting the fighter mafia on this.' If that's his perception of where irregular warfare programs are right now, then he's pretty far out of touch with the reality. My advice to him is to quit making excuses and start serving the customer better.

As an operator, my biggest gripe is the incorporation of a WSO into slow FAC'in. Everyone wants to draw parallels with FACs of yore. And while some (not all) of FAC platforms - A-1, O-1, O-2, OV-10, A-10, F-100 - had two seats, exactly zero carried a nav or a WSO. I think this would be a great mission but if it ends up working like Strike Eagle CAS ("Hey pilot, don't mask my targeting pod, and talk on the radio only by exception!") then you can keep it.

[MKopack]

"...Air Combat Command said the planes should have long loiter time and carry sophisticated sensors and encrypted data links as well as bombs, rockets and other weapons."

I thought that's why we are buying so many Predators and Reapers. Aren't they the 'magic bullet' to fix all of our problems?