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The WWII-Era Inspired Plane Giving the F-35 a Run For Its Money
schwit1 writes: The US military almost adopted the A-29 Super Tucano, a $4 million turboprop airplane reminiscent of WWII-era designs that troops wanted, commanders said was "urgently needed," but Congress refused to buy. "It's a great plane," says recently retired Air Force Lt. Col. Shamsher Mann, an F-16 pilot who has flown A-29s. "Pilots love it. It handles beautifully, sips gas, and can go anywhere. If you want to get into the fight and mix it up with the guys on the ground, the Super T is a great platform." The Super Tucano provided the "low-end" air-to-ground attack capability the United States simply never had in Afghanistan-a capability the Pentagon's F-35 could never hope to replicate.
It's not a fly high-go fast toy. They've been trying to kill the A-10 for 30 years because they don't like it.
Kind of like the competition for the F35 design. I took one look at the prototypes and knew Boeing wouldn't win. Their plane was ugly, not sexy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If we could only double the price of the F-35 I'm sure it would be..... better.
That's a Marine *cough* requirement.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Can we PLEASE cancel the F-35 and develop airplanes we can actually use? The F-35 reminds me of a sci-fi book where alien horde A has primitive ships, but a lot of them. They also are not too bright and throw more ships at every battle. Their enemies, alien horde B, keep coming up with new inventions and more amazing ships. Their ships get so expensive even losing a few bankrupts them and they surrender.
It's not a "WWII-era" plane just because it has a propeller. Is the Humvee WWII-era because it has wheels??
A bit more than 40 years ago, the military tried to develop a one-size-fits-all aircraft to be used by all of the services to replace the F-4 Phantom. It was the F-111. It ended up being too big to launch from aircraft carriers and not suitable for dog-fighting, but people thought it was cool because of the swing-wings. An expensive plane that ended up with little real use. There is also a fascination with technology in the military, with the notion that new tech gives you a significant edge. When you have to develop new tech throughout the platform, it gets expensive and inevitably you find flaws and problems you just can't overcome. Not that this doesn't happen in the private sector either. Remember the Apple Newton?
As for the A-29, pilots loved the A-10, which was essentially a flying tank. It had an armoured cockpit and was the first aircraft engineered to be shot at and keep fighting. What's not to love?
Lockheed Martin and Boeing don't want low cost weapons programs that utilize off the shelf components. The markup is too low.
The problem with that analogy is that, in the case of the F-35; the military does, in fact, want to go off-roading on that steep, rugged, slippery trail in the middle of nowhere. But they think that they can take the Corvette, raise its suspension a bit and give it off-road tires, and it'll be better than the Jeep.
Imagine all the people...
> Can someone offer an explanation as to why this plane has not been adopted?
Pork barrel politics and future private sector work. Why would they adopt something good and give up throwing projects to companies to guarantee them cushy jobs after they retire from the military
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Because the Air Force brass hates the Close Air Support (CAS) mission. It's partly a cultural thing - they want to fight wars where airpower is preeminent, where they take the starring role. They don't want to spend their time playing support to the Army/etc (despite the fact that it's been proven, time and again, that this is largely how you win wars - hitting infrastructure etc helps, but does not by itself win the war). They've been trying to kill off the A-10 for years, too, and only failing because the Army loves it, though they've managed to push it off to the Air National Guard.
It probably also helps to understand that, even beyond this air warfare centric mentality, the Air Force is largely dominated at the senior levels by fighter pilots now. Ever since SAC's role and prominence was reduced following the end of the Cold War, fighter pilots have been preeminent, with strategic bombing coming in second, and close air support all but nonexistent. After all, look at the aircraft they're pushing - expensive hi-tech single-seater air combat platforms. They see something like the A-10, or the A-29 Super Tucano, as threats that take away money and resources that could be better used for more F-35s, despite the fact that it's overpriced and underperforming, and that you could probably get 10 A-29s or equivalent for 1 F-35, or better.
Not sure if it supported vertical take off but it does support vertical landing.
The real problem is that Air Force Procurements are so broken they can't afford to replace any system for less than a trillion dollars. Right now the Air Force needs to replace:
A10->?
C5->? (C17 replaced C141)
Minuteman3->?
OH-1 Huey ->?
EF111->?(oh lets outsource that to the navy and borrow their EF-18's)
Then there are the ones they are replaceing and having debacles:
F15->F22(which was canceled because cost to much, and is causing pilots to get sick)
F16,F18,AV8b-> F-35
KC-135-> competition for the KC-46 went into multiple lawsuits and an $800million charge for Boeing, Now theyre working a new KC-X procurement because of problems with the KC-46
The procurement issues with the Tucano and AT-6 are small beans in the grand scheme of things.
Honestly they'd like to give the close support role to the Army, but they don't want to give up the budget that entails, and they don't want to allow the army to fly fixed wing. On the other hand they're about to lose one leg of the nuclear triad because they won't have a replacement for their ICBM's when they end of life in a couple years; and they know its coming and aren't able to deal with it. I guess I should put a link to the self licking ice cream cone here but meh; you can google it.