Posted on 01/25/2011 8:17:29 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
PICTURE: AirTractor delivers UAE's first AT-802Us
By Stephen Trimble
The first two of 10 AirTractor AT-802Us ordered by the United Arab Emirates air force have been spotted by alert photographers.
The counter-insurgency aircraft - each powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT-6A turboprop engine - arrived at Luqa airport in Malta in late December while en route to their final destination in the UAE.
Abu Dhabi ordered the adapted cropdusters last year, when it became the first acknowledged military buyer for the counter-insurgency version.
The AT-802U is fitted with a turret-housed electro-optical/infrared sensor to identify targets on the ground. AirTractor has integrated a variety of armaments with the type, including guided weapons and a .50cal machine gun pod.
© Malcolm Bezzina
Images show the first pair of aircraft carrying their US delivery registrations N6008Q and N60066.
Well, now we have the first “manned UAV”
Doesn’t UAV stand for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle?
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y8GR4FDu7g
Is someone who would blow up a kindergarten a man?
The poor man’s Warthog?
Color me confused! I was just making sure I understood what UAV stood for. Wouldn’t MAV (Manned Aerial Vehicle) fit the bill better? Or were you just making joke?
If it was a joke, I apologize for screwing up the punchline.
Two prop stikes and a wing strike.
That airframe is uninsurable, the engine is TBO, the prop is trash...
Fuel exhaustion?
Hmm are we going backward looks like something from the 1940s or 50s nothing wrong with that I love the older aircraft.
It wasn’t so much a joke as a sad commentary on the kulture of the receiving country.
You are correct, the U in UAV is for unmanned (although a hard-core feminist might insist on “Uncrewed” or “Unstaffed”)
Hmmm. based on a crop-duster design. I wonder how much nerve gas or anthrax one could carry...
Tractor’s about $5 million each. I’d rather have about twenty-four of these and a MD F-15E Strike Eagle for another $30 million, and $50 million dollars left over, than a $200 million F-22 Raptor.
Wouldn’t you?
$50 million dollars?
redundant
I remember watching these crop dusters fly over the mangrove swamps near my old job. They used to send out emails before the plane showed up to let us know that it’s a planned spray.
First time the plane showed up and no emails arrived prior, the whole office went into a panic. This was back after 9/11, but the fear was genuine.
not if there are enemy aircraft in the area...
Why not bring back some of the proven designs from WWII like the P51 Mustang or the P47 Thunderbolt?
“
Hmm are we going backward looks like something from the 1940s or 50s
nothing wrong with that I love the older aircraft.
“
Some years back a turboprop version of the P-51 was developed.
That looked like it could have been a real bad boy for low-level attacks
on insurgents.
Inexpert that I am, I suspect the Skyraider would have been even meaner,
carrying about the same bomb load as a WWII B-17.
Mating JDAMs to a Skyraider...sweet and you’d probably never lose
a Skyraider.
The thugs wouldn’t even know what hit them.
Pilot error demonstrating rough field landing. He hit a dirt berm on initial touchdown.
Sadly, it is the Boeing F-15E now, and it is $100 million.
This would be a better fit for the small COIN aircraft than a JDAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Diameter_Bomb
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