Posted on 10/12/2011 9:15:11 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Small Weapons for Light Fighters
In the recent weapon test campaign AT-6 completed firing of 2.75” unguided rockets, conducted captive carry test with guided 2.75" rockets and dropped general purpose bombs, four GBU-12, and four GBU-58 laser guided bombs (LGB - above), all LGBs scored direct hits. Additional tests are planned with other weapon types including Raytheon Griffin 35-lb. GPS/laser-guided bomb and Hellfire guided missile from Lockheed martin..
Under the U.S. Air National Guard evaluation of a future Light Attack and Armed Reconnaissance (LAAR) to be operated by the U.S. and Afghan air forces, the Air Force is seeking a low cost, light fighter capable of flying at altitudes up to 30,000 ft. above sea level, with a range up to 900 nautical miles, and mission endurance of six hours.
LAAR is positioned as an affordable, advanced training, light attack and armed reconnaissance aircraft that could meet the U.S. government plans to equip under-developed governments with effective aerial recce and attack capabilities necessary for combatting insurgency and drug trafficking. While providing effective, precision attack and real-time recce, the aircraft should affordable to own and operate and be able to operate from austere fields. Deliveries of such aircraft would often be considered as ‘training aircraft’, while combat operations could be flown by local trainees or,when necessary, by their foreign ‘trainers’, assisting government counter-insurgency operations.
As part of these evaluations the Brazilian Embraer A-29 Super Tucano and Hawker Beechcraft Defense Company (HBDC) AT-6 are undergoing weapon qualification and operational evaluation Currently undergoing operational assessment by the Air National Guard/Air Force Reserve Test Center (AATC), toward a final selection next month. Embraer has prepared its position in the U.S. by teaming with the California based
(Excerpt) Read more at defense-update.com ...
If the maintenance side is as impressive as the capabilities, I'm for it.
/johnny
Unfortunately, our war fighters are forced to wait while Beech plays a game of catch up. There was a unit ready to deploy last year in the Super T until the Kansas congressional contingent put a stop to it.
They should redeploy the 50 mm cannon on fighter/bombers which McNamara eliminated. The pilots loved them and they can do the job much cheaper than rockets in many cases. It doesn’t have to be either or, it can be both.
As far as congress screwing up a perfectly good weapon system for political reasons, go back to Sec. Stanton, under Lincoln. Or before. Sigh...
I just want our guys on the ground to have good support. I hate that the AF hates the A-10, and that is part of the reason I think (most of the time) that the USAF should be the USAAF again. I despise the fighter mafia.
They could screw up a wet... anyway.... politicians are rarely correct.
/johnny
With these drones...any need for pilots these days? That is non-key board pilots.
This AC would be great for what we face today.
Not very sexy for Mach 1+ pilots, but they do work for us.
/johnny
Yes. because some day we may have to fight where people have effective jammer equipment.
I have wondered what a large spark gap transmitter would do to the data link to a drone. Its brutally low tech but it hits almost all bands and is well dirt cheap to build.
The deployment plan was a mixed units from the two services.
Ooo... I just remembered I need to check my blood pressure, because when I saw Mc's name, I saw red.
He was a one person cluster f***.
He's still alive, last I heard. I'll dance and sing when he rolls snake eyes.
/johnny
Not much. I won't go into details, but really, not much. I've got an arcing insulator out on the street near me (that the electric company won't change, 20db over S9), and I have electronics to get around that listening to faint morse code from South Africa. And my gear is commercial crap.
/johnny
I just got erased for two sentences.
/johnny
Generally digital signals are broad band and redundant. The spark gap hits all bands, but not all bands at once. Noise would affect a few 10s of bits per seconds, but if you are sending out 10,000 bits a second, and you have cyclic redundancy checks to both detect and correct any errors, you mostly can ignore the jammer.
If they put 10,000 spark jammers out there, they would be likely to hit the same bits multiple times, rather than just hit the ones they missed. Further, a jammer is a beacon. If you broadcast vs. the US, you may have a loud noise coming your way.
Both aircraft run PT-6’s I believe and the version I work on has a 400hr borescope interval, with the bore scope being 5mm in diamater - the video scopes work great. As for tear down our hot section inspection is every 2500hrs and every 4000 hrs the engine is pulled for overhaul.
Nope, McN died Jul 06, 2009.
These planes represent progress outlined from Stage II to Stage III in the State Dept document “Freedom From War” Publication 5277.
It's sounding better and better.
How long does the 100 hour maintenance take?
/johnny
I'll have a belated party later today for the event.
/johnny
I understand frame relay etc...
and yes jammers draw attention !
But I dont think Harm/Alarm/Sidearm/Standard could focus on it. but LGB / Iron / cluster could do the job.
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