DD:
Interesting first-hand experience. Such is always welcome.
One thing, though, I do not think any MANPADS shoulder launched AA missiles have RF guidance. Just IR & CLOS. Still, prop planes and helos stand out like sore thumbs to RF.
For my own part, I would like to see a modernized A-10 CAS/heavy lift/long loiter attack plane successor for AF/Navy/USMC that could be designed to operate from the USN/USMC carriers modified with a jump ramp & cable arrest to supplement the F-35. VTOL is mighty expensive mass & complexity-wise.
None of those aircraft: light attack, A-10, A-10 follow-on are survivable in an environment where an enemy air defense network still exists.
Since VN, we have operated in environments where we crush enemy AD networks and then the only enemy AD left is MANPADS and light cannons. AD suppression of near-peer foes will not be so easy. Just ask the Israelis after they pushed too hard and too slimily in Syria, hacking off the Russians...who then sold Bashar the S-300 AA system. Now, Syria can see and discriminate Israeli aircraft as they take off inside Israel. And Israel has stopped bombing Syria and Lebanon with aircraft, but uses ballistic and cruise missiles almost exclusively.
FTR, S-300 first produced in 1975 and was upgraded up through 2005. That 1975-origin technology has pinned down the Israeli AF, which used to bomb inside Syria and Lebanon with impunity.
