Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire USAF not buying light attack aircraft.

I don't see it Jim, at least not in the context of those little fairy wagons shown in the OP. I mentioned the strategies associated with air defense suppression earlier and one of the issues that floats to the top in my mind is the radar cross section of a propeller. It's huge...and a shoulder fired AA missile that tracks radar rather than IR signature has an easy target IMO. I may be overstating the significance of that, but the other thing that comes to mind is the very limited weapons capability they have. Look at the pic below, count the hard points on the wings and the style of weaponry.



Back in the day the Marines flew the OV10 is a different configuration that the USAF. They had miniguns, 5" rockets and on occasion carried small bombs. The artwork below illustrates they were a bit crazier than their AF counterparts. Note the wing stubs that suggest machine gun barrels? They carried those and miniguns on pods under the belly. Diversity has it's place


Another silly aspect of the OP aircraft is, uh, 2 seats? Why? Perhaps they want to provide more POWs down the road? The OV10 had 2 seats also, but it's primary mission was forward air control (FAC) and an observer was/is a useful addition, even if not perfectly necessary.

If decided that props are OK, how about having a substantial weapons payload capability. Pic below illustrates this. Bombs, napalm, cannons/machine guns (see the barrels on the wing?) etc, etc...extra fuel and on and on and on....