combat aircraft

terms of fuel, and the aircraft are cheap

to operate and can  y low and slow,

allowing pilots to observe the battle eld

with their own eyes. Meanwhile, drones

do not make for great spotters. Their

imagery is often grainy and cannot

compete with the human eyeball for

precision, contributing to the wasteful

use of JDAMs seen in the Middle East.

The cost di erence is real. In November

2017, a stealthy F-22A Raptor struck a

Taliban drug lab worth around a mere

$2,800, according to a January 2018

report from David Mans eld, a London

School of Economics researcher who

studies the Afghan drug trade. The

F-22 costs $70,000 per hour to operate.

By comparison, a Super Tucano costs

around $1,000 per hour.

The pilot problem

Perhaps most pressing is how OA-X

can either answer or hinder the USAF’s

ongoing pilot shortage. This numbers

some 2,000 pilots, or 10 per cent of

what the air force needs — 1,200 of

them  ghter pilots. Burnout from

constant operations and competition

from commercial aviation are two of the

biggest factors. ‘With 2,000 pilots short,

it’ll break the force’, Air Force Secretary

Heather Wilson said in November.

Here’s the catch. The acquisition of

300 light attack aircraft will add another

750 aviators to the USAF’s demand,

according to Chitwood, as each Super

Tucano and Wolverine normally carries

one pilot and weapons operator — and

each USAF  ghter squadron has one

extra pilot for every four aircraft. That

is before you consider the additional

personnel needed to support the

aircraft, although that number

will be smaller than a comparable

 ghter squadron.

However, the USAF’s problems are

more complex than that. It has a

shortage of airframes, which  eet-wide

are at their lowest state of readiness in

decades. The overriding reason is that

the USAF has been at war continually

since the ‘9/11’ attacks. In a terrible

quandary, relying more on F-16s, F-15s,

F-22s and bombers to strike insurgents

wears out airframes on the ‘legacy’

 ghters, which the USAF needs to train

new  ghter pilots.

Light attack aircraft would be one way

to free up those  ghters. The USAF just

needs to  nd the pilots.

This image:

Textron AirLand

has completed

a series of

weapons fi ring

trials with its

company-

funded Scorpion

demonstrators,

although the

Scorpion has

been eliminated

from OA-X.

Textron AirLand

Left: Pilot

absorption

and the ability

to reduce

deployment

demands on

fi ghter squadrons

are seen as a

driving factor

behind OA-X.

USAF/

Christopher Okula

Above left to

right: The AT-

has met the A-

in competition

in the past — the

results of the

Light Attack

Experiment will

be critical to its

future. Beechcraft

Embraer/

SNC A-29B

Super Tucano

demonstrator

PT-ZNV during

the Light Attack

Experiment in

August. USAF/

Ethan D. Wagner

The Air Tractor/L

OA-8 Longsword

entered the fi nal

experiment and

was gauged as a

‘Tier 2’ aircraft

as it did not

meet all of the

USAF’s criteria. L

Communications

THE BRIEFING // LIGHT ATTACK EXPERIMENT

16 July 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

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