The OA-1K Skyraider II

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M

MIflyer

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From Avweb:

Some Air Force pilots will leave the service with a tailwheel endorsement. The Air Force expects to get its first (of 75) OA-1K Skyraider II light attack fighters in the next couple of months, and its nickname pays homage to what was likely the last taildragger to actively serve. The original A-1 Skyraider was a much beloved machine gun and missile platform that was designed in the Second World War and flew in active duty until the 1980s. The OA-1K is not your grandfather's Skyraider, however.

Based on the Air Tractor 802 cropduster, the Skyraider II was developed by Air Tractor and L3Harris to fill a similar role as its namesake but to support U.S. Special Command's Armed Overwatch program. So far, the Air Force has determined the plane will provide ground support, along with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, but the commander who gets to wring it out first says he's not sure where it's going to go. "I am excited about the Skyraider II, I think we have a capability that's only ours, and we are going to have the ability to shape that into something that the rest of the nation might not even know they need right now," Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, Air Force Special Operations commander, said in a statement.

The plane is powered by a 1,600-HP PT6A and is designed for landing and taking off from farmers' fields. It will haul 6,000 pounds of weapons from 10 hard points and cruise at 180 knots for 1500 nautical miles. It has numerous data and voice communications systems along with a glass cockpit.
 
That may not seem like a whole lot in the jet age, but think about it. That airplane has more combat capability than a B-25.
 
GrauGeist said:
The 802 is perhaps one of the best COIN aircraft platforms.
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Back during Vietnam the US Army was looking for a suitable convoy escort aircraft. They needed something that would be able to loiter over truck convoys and provide instant response in the event of a ambush. Of course the USAF approach was to use jets and have them rush to the area.

The Army found the perfect aircraft for the job, inexpensive, rugged, capable of highly accurate weapons delivery and even able to operate out of rough airstrips.

It was the Grumman Ag Cat. "How many do you want?" Grumman asked.

The Army replied, "Are you kidding? We'd be laughed out of the Pentagon if we bought a radial engined biplane!"

 
COIN? As in Crappy, Overpriced, Ineffective, and Not needed? Some of you may recall another very similar COIN aircraft from the 60's, the Fletcher Defender- another crop sprayer Skyraiider wannabe! If an A-10 and A-1H are no longer survivable in the modern battlefield, what makes the AF think this platform will be any better? If for sure can't take the punishment that a Spad or Hawg can. If I dd the math right, the cost each one of the 75 OA-1K''s will be 40 million dollars, an A-1H/A-1E was $414.000 per unit, and the A-10 was 1.4 million dollars
 
Interesting how people forget that contracts for aircraft like this one, also include spare parts, required test equipment, authoring of maintenance and operation manuals, weapons qualification and full electronics qualifications as well as structural and flight test programs.
 
Note that a Predator drone looks almost absurd from a WW2 perspective. Only very lightly armed and capable of a blistering cruise speed of around 100 kts. May be useful for theaters where the enemy forces have less capability than a P-43, and probably not worth the effort. But they would have not been bombing the ball bearing plants, or attacking IJN carriers at Midway but probably doing ASW and maritime patrol in very low threat environments - like the PBY, B-18, and Hudson.

There is something absurd about using F-22's and F-35's against people whose counter-air capabilities are an AK-47. So in Vietnam we used T-28's, another airplane that would have been useless over Europe or the Solomans in WW2. And for that matter, a UH-1 would have not survived the environment of the ETO, although a J-3 Cub could, if used judiciously.

The Douglas A-1 as originally conceived was supposed to go up against front line threats, as they existed in 1945. But even 5 years later in Korea they were not dueling in Mig Alley.
 
COIN aircraft are better suited for low intensity environments than front line aircraft.

Yes, an A-10 or Su-25 can vaporize guerilla ground elements, but at what cost?
A COIN has the ability to loiter, make contact with enemy and/or provide detailed recon from primitive FOBs using their STOL and rugged designs.
Their operating cost and minimal logistics is also a huge factor.
 
MIflyer said:
He did not just dislike other's opinions and comments but also the original news article as well.
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If I dislike the content of a post, I'll reply to the post and use the "thumbs down" or red X emojis. This way I am clearly disliking the contents of the post and not the poster.
 
GrauGeist said:
COIN aircraft are better suited for low intensity environments than front line aircraft.
Click to expand...
There was a story from WW2 that one instructor liked to teach his students a lesson once they had been checked out in the P-51. He would tell them they were going to dogfight, the student in a P-51 and the instructor in a Piper L-4. The student quickly found out that while the P-51 was much faster than the L-4 he could not get it in his sights; it was too maneuverable. And as the student grew more frustrated, racing past the L-4 again and again, the instructor would land in a field and pull under a tree, while the student tried to figure out how the L-4 could disappear.
 
It is amazing that throughout history, COIN missions were assigned to aircraft modified to the mission: T-6, then T-28, then A-26, then A-1, even a Piper developed version of the P-51, modified T-37 and even Cessna Skymaster. And now the 802 AirTractor.

Only one aircraft was designed from the start as a dedicated COIN aircraft - the OV-10. It was a great success but interest in COIN went away with the end of the Vietnam war and so the use of the type by the US. It continued to be used very successfully by other countries, though. The OV-10, with modernized engines and systems, could be a much more potent and better solution to the COIN issue than the 802.

(Deviating from the subject matter - the A-10s should have been transferred to the Army!).
 
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