combat aircraft

Airwars, which noted how the USAF over

Iraq and Syria often did not know what

it was bombing. More — and smaller —

drones and better intelligence point the

path forward, not more aircraft to add to

already overcrowded airspace.

The need for light attack

The reply is that con icts with lightly

armed extremists have kept roaring back

and light attack aircraft are well-suited

to  ghting them. American drones are

active in the skies above Somalia and in

Africa’s Sahel region. French and Belgian

helicopters are active over Mali, and the

USAF is still at war in Afghanistan, where

the Afghan Super Tucanos are in combat.

In 2016, the US Army sent AH-64 Apache

attack helicopters into Iraq to  ght IS. If the

airspace was permissible enough for low-

 ying helicopters to operate, then it was

safe enough for cheap light attack aircraft

too — which can  y at higher altitudes

than helicopters.

Critics of these aircraft are certainly right

that they cannot survive around modern

air defenses, but most of those air defense

systems are being developed and  elded

by a handful of states that have already

had those weapons for decades. Where

light attack turboprops can compete is in

cost and  exibility.

They don’t require paved runways as

modern  ghters and bombers do. Their

logistical footprint is light, particularly in

Light and highly maneuverable aircraft

armed with cannon, rockets and small

bombs can fl y low and close to the ground, and hunt

targets better than faster-moving aircraft

http://www.combataircraft.net // July 2018 15

14-17 The Briefing C.indd 15 21/05/2018 22: