re: USAF looking for a low cost light attack fighter for the war on terror

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Tchefuncte Tiger

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The Cavalier...AKA an upgraded P-51.

Why not rebuild the A-10 platform? Even better, restart the production line for low rate production with updated technology. Or let the damn Army have the A-10 and stop being petty little bitches hiding behind the Key West Accords. Between the A-10 and the C27J, I hope a Trump administration comes in and squashes this silliness.

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They need to focus on drones and stop pretending this is 1988.

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They are, actually. Expanding drone capability is a big part of current planning.

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They are, actually. Expanding drone capability is a big part of current planning.

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All of the goals of this proposal are more efficiently accomplished by drone use except for the nonsense "seasoning" for newb pilots who don't get to fly.

It sounds like McCain wants to create an entirely new platform to send pilots on counterterrorism runs because they don't have anything else to do and they want to fly. We shouldnt be using the F-22/F-35 for close air support for this, but creating an entirely new platform (which is guaranteed to go over budget) just to have a cheaper option for training pilots seems really wasteful.

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The Cavalier...AKA an upgraded P-51.

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That's a PA-48 Enforcer. One was never brought into inventory for testing so it never got a military designation. The Cavalier would be a good choice, though.

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submarine launched cruise and icbm's

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“These aircraft could conduct counterterrorism operations, perform close-air support and other missions in permissive environments, and help to season pilots to mitigate the Air Force’s fighter pilot shortfall,”

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Can't tell if they're proposing more drones or if they just want a bunch of OT baller good ole baws to volunteer to unload their AR15s from the windows of their Cessnas over the Levant.

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USAF looking for a low cost light attack fighter for the war on terror

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We've been talking about this for ages it seems. They need to shite or get off the pot. The super tucano is already being distributed to Afghanistan. Just use it already.

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Yep. F-35 is DOA if that happens

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A low cost light attack fighter causing the F-35 to be DOA? What are you smoking?

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Just need an updated F-16 like platform Internal weapon storage and stealth is not needed fighting goat herders, we need to invest in EW not stealth

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Low cost, low maintenance is their goal and the F-16 is due to be replaced by the F-35. Not to mention the F-16 provides a completely different mission capability. Think A-1 skyraider or OV-10 bronco.

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Now - all that aside, this is PR spin (something they're very good at) for this: "The F-35 project has so fricked us, we're in disbelief about it. We know that drones are going to put a lot of our guys out of work. We need a program to save as many pilot billets as we can. We get that the nation is getting budget conscious - happens after every Dem administration it seems - so, we'll try to sell this new boondoggle on a 'cost' basis."

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I agree that the F-35 has been very costly but no UAV can come close to providing the mission capabilities that the F-35 can and will be able to provide.

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Why wont Lockheed do the same thing with the F-16 that Boeing did with the F-18? You have a completly viable platform thats proven itself in combat. So use that as your base and expand the platform. The E/F Hornets share a ton of parts commonality with the C/D Hornets (On of the big selling points of the F-35) and the program. Lockheed exports some pretty advanced versions of the F-16. It wouldn't take much to make that work As far as replacing the capabilities, it was a folly from the start. You can't have your frontline hardware be "Jack of all, Master of none" and be successful. Isn't the -A version of the F-35 doing okay? Arent most of the issues and development costs associated with the B V/STOL version? Put your money into the A and C, scrap the B, lick your wounds and move on.

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Aren't the Hornet and "Super" Hornet completely two different airframes? The only similarities are that they look the same.

And the F-35 is not a master of nothing in the air. No airplane in the air has the sensor package that the F-35 has. The most impressive thing about the F-22 was never its dogfighting ability or its 1:1 power ratio. It was the sensor package.

The B model of the F-35 has gotten a lot of crap recently but I don't think that's where most of the delays and budget went to. The VTOL system never had much of a problem. It's been mostly working out everything across all 3 of the models.