Posted on 03/08/2016 11:35:52 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Paramount Group
AHRLAC Plane
This weird plane will soon get weapons. Probably normal weapons, maybe weird weapons too.
South Africa’s AHRLAC is a weird bird. With a narrow, high body, and stadium seating for the pilot and sensor operator, it looks like a rough draft for an F-4 phantom. A pusher prop and slightly forward-swept wings seem like an aviation mistake from the First World War.
Built as a bushwacking scout, able to operate from rough fields without runways, AHRLAC is an odd drone alternative, a peopled plane built to do a drone’s job.
Now, thanks to a deal Paramount (AHRLAC's maker) struck with Boeing, it’s going to get weapons.
AHRLAC’s top speed is a modest 310 mph, about the same as a Reaper drone and about twice that of a standard Huey helicopter. With an expected endurance of over 7 hours, it’s better suited for long patrols than helicopters, maybe even at a lower cost than sophisticated drones.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
I guess a GAU-8/A is out of the question?
Not unless you actually want the plane to still be able to fly.
Details, details.......
They could probably spear a few guys with that striped sensor sticking out of the nose.
That's not weirdThis is weird 
Well it appears to be SA-18 bait, doesn’t seem to have the payload of a OV-10 Bronco so small diameter bomb packs of four 250 pounders or AGM 114 Hellfires so gonna guess 2.75 inch rockets w smoke to mark targets for fast movers with real payloads of ordnance . But then again they, aka Dyncorp, turned the Air Tractor 602 into a DEA contract beast the could carry all the above with GAU-19’s as well , easily, for drug interdiction in central and south america.
Yeah..... my guess would be....
GAU-19’s x 2
Small Diameter Bomb Pack with four 250 pounders
2 x 2.75 rocket pods
Stay Safe !
That probe would be good for a game of “Duck, Duck, GOOSE!
Ed
The second was weird enough to be in one of the Mad Max movies, but I couldn’t tell you who made it.
That’s not weird at all, it’s a remake of the proven plane we used in Vietnam. (OHV 110 ???, someone help me).
ooops, OV 10 Bronco.
It looks more like an O-2 Skymaster. But with a new fuselage and only a single engine.
Plekiu,AFB-69-70
Maybe a 7.62 minigun or two on fuselage-mounted pylons? Those can throw a lot of rounds, and the noise alone can make a booniehumper soil himself.
Buy stock in whatever propeller company they're using, cause a pusher and unimproved fields don't go together very well at all.
O-2 "Bird Dog". Vietnam-era artillery spotter & Air Rescue craft. Due to the Key West Agreement and perhaps it's light construction it never carried anything other than smoke rockets to mark the target area. I'm pretty sure of that...
A couple of aeons ago (back when I was 9 feet tall) I was assigned to a MACV Advisory Team (#14, Phu Quoc.)
We had a semi-permanent air team at our camp - one Huey Gunship, two Cobras and a Bird Dog. But our Bird Dog was the older “0-1” type. I’m for sure that all it had was smoke and a radio.
The 0-1 proved invaluable for carrying precious supplies.
Like gunny sacks full of live crabs.
I remember the first time I heard the minis fire from a Cobra.
And I remember telling myself "It's OK - he's on *our* side."
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