Super Tucano Down

The evolution of the fighter plane is interesting. It seems as if high end jet fighters are the nukes of yesteryear.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The evolution of the fighter plane is interesting. It seems as if high end jet fighters are the nukes of yesteryear.
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Fighter? Where's the fighter? I see a ground attack airplane for a low-threat environment.

Nauga,
plinking
 
looks to me like this would slide into a role similar to that of the A-1 SkyRaider as used in Vietnam for rescue and other close air support roles...
 
Sac Arrow said:
The evolution of the fighter plane is interesting. It seems as if high end jet fighters are the nukes of yesteryear.
Click to expand...

This light attack concept only works once all the high threat ADA / fighters have been eliminated such as in Iraq. You send something like this in during the initial stages of combat, with a formidable foe and they’ll be dead meat. High end fighter / attack will always be needed.
 
Velocity173 said:
This light attack concept only works once all the high threat ADA / fighters have been eliminated such as in Iraq. You send something like this in during the initial stages of combat, with a formidable foe and they’ll be dead meat. High end fighter / attack will always be needed.
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Good point.
 
They looked into this back in the 80s when Central America was misbehaving. Piper came out with the Enforcer, which looks like a P51 except it's a turbo prop, PT6 I think. Never could acquire a market for it and the program died.

image.jpeg
 
mscard88 said:
They looked into this back in the 80s when Central America was misbehaving. Piper came out with the Enforcer, which looks like a P51 except it's a turbo prop, PT6 I think. Never could acquire a market for it and the program died.
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The PA-48 used a Lycoming YT55-L-9. It was developed from the Cavalier Mustang, which was a civil version of the P-51. More info on Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-48_Enforcer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalier_Mustang
 
I used to work at Shorts when they were building the Short Tucano T1 for the RAF, with that Garrett upfront, that was on impressive airplane. And that was late 80s/early 90s
 
mscard88 said:
They looked into this back in the 80s when Central America was misbehaving. Piper came out with the Enforcer, which looks like a P51 except it's a turbo prop, PT6 I think. Never could acquire a market for it and the program died.
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Think of it -- 21st Century military pilots having to learn tailwheel skills (U-2 excepted). Nice!
 
I read in a fairly reliable aviation rag (maybe Av Week? or Tyler Rogoway?) that USAF had no plans to implement this concept themselves, but may develop it so it can be sold to allied 2nd world nations to help defend themselves against light ground forces and provide their own light CAS. USAF, for reasons of politics and vanity, are tied to using fast jets.

It's a shame. We're literally flying the wings off of the A-10, F-15, F-16, and F-18 fleet and spending 10-20x as much as we need to.




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A-10 = fast jet?:D

The 70’s and 80’s airframes can fly forever if you want to spend the maintenance money. It’s common knowledge that Congress and Contractors would rather build new stuff like the abominable F-35 set of airplanes.

Since I got into the aircraft Deveolpment business back in the 60’s, I’ve watched a terrible death spiral of new airframes. The stupid A***** in Fort Fumble and Congressional Staffs think they can save money by making multi mission/service planes which cause the services to add requirements to cover every mission thus raising the cost and resulting in “universal use” overpriced underperforming single airframes. In the end, it would be just as cheap to build “horses for courses” and have a flexible and responsive fighter and attack fleet.

Cheers
 
X3 Skier said:
A-10 = fast jet?:D

The 70’s and 80’s airframes can fly forever if you want to spend the maintenance money. It’s common knowledge that Congress and Contractors would rather build new stuff like the abominable F-35 set of airplanes.

Since I got into the aircraft Deveolpment business back in the 60’s, I’ve watched a terrible death spiral of new airframes. The stupid A***** in Fort Fumble and Congressional Staffs think they can save money by making multi mission/service planes which cause the services to add requirements to cover every mission thus raising the cost and resulting in “universal use” overpriced underperforming single airframes. In the end, it would be just as cheap to build “horses for courses” and have a flexible and responsive fighter and attack fleet.

Cheers
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You sure you weren’t part of The Fighter Mafia? ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_Mafia
 
Sac Arrow said:
The evolution of the fighter plane is interesting. It seems as if high end jet fighters are the nukes of yesteryear.
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When you’re occupying super poor countries with no real military you don’t need crazy advanced air to air stuff.
 
Velocity173 said:
You sure you weren’t part of The Fighter Mafia? ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_Mafia
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Actually I had fight off those toads in the F-15 and F-22 programs. The “not a pound for air to ground” mantra in the F-15 program was the slogan but the real story was with minor structural requirements “adjustments” in the F15A/B, the ability to deliver the F-15E version was pretty simple and without a lot of penalties to the F-15C/D or E. It’s just not as good as a F-15E mission type designed from the start. Such a design would have have better capability but the F-15E is a pretty good air to ground weapon system.

Same story on the F-22. With some minor sizing changes in the YF-22 and YF-23 program, the weapons bay accommodations worked both for AAMRAM and bombs. Again minor mods results in a dual, if not optimum, role.

The real problem IMNSHO, is this fascination with “commonality” and the degrading of the industry because of few if any new starts and the one size fits all roles and “it will be cheaper” superstition with the resulting ballooning of requirements and inevitable cost growth. Designing a plane for say, Air Superiority and adapting it for mud churning is easier than trying to optimize everything from the start. Better to design a primary role and adapt as practical to other roles.

Take the TFX/F-111 as another multi role fiasco where I was a lowly engine engineer. The USN version never really worked and was canceled. The USAF Version, originally designed as a low level penetrating nuke carrier AND Air superiority fighter to replace the F-105 Thud and F-4 Rhino, not to mention the USN F-8 and A-7, finally found its home as a USAF bomb truck and later EW platform.

Cheers

PS, John Boyd was a great thinker but Pierre Sprey was a jerk. If I heard that the blitz fighter was the answer to the ATF (F-22) requirements one more time back in the day........
 
X3 Skier said:
Actually I had fight off those toads in the F-15 and F-22 programs. The “not a pound for air to ground” mantra in the F-15 program was the slogan but the real story was with minor structural requirements “adjustments” in the F15A/B, the ability to deliver the F-15E version was pretty simple and without a lot of penalties to the F-15C/D or E. It’s just not as good as a F-15E mission type designed from the start. Such a design would have have better capability but the F-15E is a pretty good air to ground weapon system.

Same story on the F-22. With some minor sizing changes in the YF-22 and YF-23 program, the weapons bay accommodations worked both for AAMRAM and bombs. Again minor mods results in a dual, if not optimum, role.

The real problem IMNSHO, is this fascination with “commonality” and the degrading of the industry because of few if any new starts and the one size fits all roles and “it will be cheaper” superstition with the resulting ballooning of requirements and inevitable cost growth. Designing a plane for say, Air Superiority and adapting it for mud churning is easier than trying to optimize everything from the start. Better to design a primary role and adapt as practical to other roles.

Take the TFX/F-111 as another multi role fiasco where I was a lowly engine engineer. The USN version never really worked and was canceled. The USAF Version, originally designed as a low level penetrating nuke carrier AND Air superiority fighter to replace the F-105 Thud and F-4 Rhino, not to mention the USN F-8 and A-7, finally found its home as a USAF bomb truck and later EW platform.

Cheers

PS, John Boyd was a great thinker but Pierre Sprey was a jerk. If I heard that the blitz fighter was the answer to the ATF (F-22) requirements one more time back in the day........
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Yep, read Boyd’s book. Seemed a bit eccentric but a real genius when it came to fighter tactics and design. 30 years of service and retired as a Col. Perfect example of how the politicians get promoted and the real warriors don’t.

“The Pentagon Wars” book is a good insight as to the whole procurement and R&D process. Of course it covers the flat out fraud, waste and abuse of DOD as well. Just the background on the A-12 in it is was worth the read. I think it was interesting to note that Burton and the rest of the “mafia” theories were somewhat disproven in Desert Storm. I’d say all coalition aircraft, including dual role performed admirably in that theater. I do agree with a low cost light attack aircraft for low intensity/ kinetic warfare though. A few hundred of these would be nice.

 
There is some book my old SSO was telling me I should read, specifically about the A-12 program. I forget the name now, ill have to re-engage.
 
35 AoA said:
There is some book my old SSO was telling me I should read, specifically about the A-12 program. I forget the name now, ill have to re-engage.
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The $5BN Misunderstanding? You can have my copy :rolleyes:
I was peripherally involved in that program after the termination; no one, including those "peripherally involved in that program after the termination", has anything to be proud of. :mad:

It's very hard to understand (and document) the details and where the responsibilities actually lay without presenting stuff that can't be discussed in the open.

Nauga,
and another few $BN worth of blamestorming.
 
Yep, thats the one naugs! My understanding is a lot of typical Navy acquisitions arrogance, combined with technologies that were not yet mature enough to support the claims from the manufacturer. Close? That being said, my understanding is that we also have the A-12 to thank for the APG-79, which is fing awesome btw. If true, I guess that is something to be proud of, at least in a pretty tangential way.
 
Since the A-12, ATF and the USA Attack Stealth helicopter (an oxymoron if there is one) were going on at the same time and were supposed to use “common avionics”, I was familiar with the other programs from my perspective as the ATF Chief Engineer. One look at those two programs led us to more or less ignore the USN and USA as hopeless programs and adopt the philosophy, common avionics means they can use ATF processors since whatever they were doing was so much doo doo. Another example BTW of the idiocy of commonality. Very similar situation in the mission planning arena.

Later, after I retired, I was hired as an expert witness for the A-12 contractors (led by GD) in the ongoing never ending litigation. Funny thing, some of the contractors I dealt with at GD, Northrop and other were hired by the Government. Once I saw the rationale the government was using to claim failure to perform, it was clear to me there was enough blame to go around to cover everybody, led by that pinnacle of excellence John Lehman, SECNAV demanding stuff like he had in the A-6 as a BN.

Cheers
 
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Nice X3. I'm sure you saw some interesting and also some pretty ugly stuff. I always wonder if those "acquisitions professional" courses are to actually address the problem, or further feed the self licking ice cream cone. My guess is that it is the latter. Thanks for your service, it sounds like you tried

Also, the "mission planning" lobby is strong, doesn't talk to itself on either side of the collateral/non-collateral classification wall, and is probably the biggest fraud/waste/abuse contributor I can think of. Just saying......
 
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35 AoA said:
I always wonder if those "acquisitions professional" courses are to actually address the problem, or further feed the self licking ice cream cone.
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If there’re still teaching the stuff that I was subject to at General Officers Short Course at the Defense Acquisition University, there is no hope. I filed most of what they peddled back then (mid 80’s) in the burn bag to make sure it didn’t infect the programs I worked :D

Cheers
 
X3 Skier said:
If there’re still teaching the stuff that I was subject to at General Officers Short Course at the Defense Acquisition University, there is no hope. I filed most of what they peddled back then (mid 80’s) in the burn bag...
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Can't say what they were teaching in the '80s (I didn't even know they were around then) but by the mid 90's they were preaching lessons learned from the A-12.

That fiasco (among others) was what sparked the whole acquisition reform movement (pun intended) of the 90's.

Nauga,
out of the hole
 
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