May 16, 2018 | International, Aerospace
The US Air Force started the second phase of its Light Attack Experiment on Monday, putting the A-29 Super Tucano and AT-6B Wolverine aircraft through more testing at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Air Force officials have touted light-attack aircraft as a cheap option to address low-end threats, like ISIS or other militant groups, and free up advanced platforms, like the F-22 and F-35, to take on more complex operations.
Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein has described the light-attack aircraft as part of a networked battlefield, connecting and sharing information with partner forces in the air and on the ground.
"We're looking at light attack through the lens of allies and partners," Goldfein told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "A big part of the Light Attack Experiment is a common architecture and an intelligence-sharing network, so that those who would join us would be part of the campaign against violent extremism."
The latest phase of the Light Attack Experiment will be a three-month, live-fly experiment intended to gather more information about each aircraft's capabilities, networking ability, and potential interoperability with partner forces, the Air Force said in a release.
The first phase of the experiment took place at Holloman in August with four aircraft. In February, the Air Force announced that it had narrowed the field to the two current aircraft.
The second phase at Holloman comes in lieu of a combat demonstration, which Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in February the service would forgo.
"This second phase of experimentation is about informing the rapid procurement process as we move closer to investing in light attack," Lt. Gen. Arnie Bunch, the military deputy at the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said in the release.
Fighter, attack, and special-operations pilots will take part in this phase of the experiment, working with test pilots and flight engineers from the Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve. They will carry out day and night missions doing air interdiction, close air support, armed overwatch, and combat search and rescue.
Adding light-attack aircraft to the fleet would mean more airframes on which pilots could train in order to maintain their qualifications and prepare to transition to more advanced aircraft — helping address a pilot shortage caused in part by bottlenecks in the training pipeline.
"If we can get light attack aircraft operating in permissive combat environments, we can alleviate the demand on our 4th and 5th generation aircraft, so they can be training for the high-end fight they were made for," Bunch said in the release.
The Air Force has not committed to pursuing a contract for a light-attack aircraft after the experiment, however. Lt. Gen. Jerry Harris, deputy chief of staff for requirements, told Flight Global that the Air Force hasn't made a final decision, though he said service has reserved more than $2 billion over the next six years should it go forward with production.
Critics have said operating such aircraft, even in permissive environments, will expose pilots to more risk.
"The last time the US did this in Vietnam, oh boy, it really wasn't pleasant," Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis for aerospace-consulting firm Teal Group, told Air Force Times in February. "They took a lot of casualties, for predictable reasons. It's low, it's slow and vulnerable, and the air defense environment has become a lot more sophisticated."
The A-29 Super Tucano is already in service with the Afghan air force, and Wilson said in 2017 that none of those aircraft had been shot down in 18 months of operations.
October 10, 2023 | International, Land, Security
The framework agreement for 155mm artillery ammunition concluded in July runs until 2029 and represents gross potential order volume of around €1.2 billion
May 13, 2022 | International, Aerospace
The Space Force signed off on the new test enterprise vision in March, which calls for an integrated test force and a more robust space test and training range infrastructure.
August 6, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Jen Judson   WASHINGTON — The Missile Defense Agency has paused its effort to design a defensive hypersonic missile and wants to refocus its plan of attack by concentrating on near-term options that could feed into a more “elegant” solution, according to Vice Adm. Jon Hill, the organization's director. The agency tapped industry in January to design and build an interceptor capable of defending against regional hypersonic weapons threats, releasing a draft request for proposals to build prototypes. The request directed industry to submit whitepapers by March 19 to build a Hypersonic Defense Regional Glide Phase Weapons System interceptor. The plan then was to select at least one prime contractor to build prototypes that would culminate in a flight test, according to the draft RFP. But last month, the agency updated its posting on the federal government's contract opportunities website and said the final solicitation was under review. It also said the agency was assessing COVID-19 impacts, technology maturation efforts, threat analyses, and empirical data from the recent joint Defense Department hypersonic testing in March “to accurately establish the technical baseline and future end-state for hypersonic missile defense and the (RGPWS) effort.” Agency leaders said they expect to complete the review by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2021. “One of the reasons we took the pause and said, ‘We'll get back to you later in the year,' is we want to see what we can do in the very near-term, and I'll define the near-term as the mid-20s, and then feed the science and technology investments going so you can get to that farther-term, more elegant solution,” Hill said at the virtual Space and Missile Defense Symposium Aug. 4. “But we want to get that capability out there as soon as possible to defend against the hypersonic threat and we want to continue to build out that capability and we believe the glide phase, further back in that trajectory, is always better than the terminal systems that we got today,” Hill added. He noted that the capability to take out threats in the terminal phase of flight is still critical. But, “you will want to move back that trajectory as far as you can,” he said. Achieving “glide phase” defensive capability could come through a variety of technologies, he said, including different warhead types, different effector types and what kind of propulsion is used to get there. MDA is on a long-term path to achieving hypersonic defensive capability, but it is focused first on its Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS), according to Hill. “That is number one, we have got to be able to sense, detect and get tracking and fire control information down to the shooter,” he said. As the agency went through its analysis of alternatives for a defensive hypersonic interceptor, “we recognized there are two paths you can take to get to a weapon system,” Hill said. MDA is going to build off its command-and-control battle management and the effectors it has in place, Hill said, adding the agency can take advantage of terrestrial-based and mobile sea-based sensing today to get tracking data and push it where it needs to go. “The question is how long do you stay in the science and technology world? You should also take a look at a quick development path and that is what we are looking at now,” Hill said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2020/08/04/mda-pauses-defensive-hypersonic-missile-design-effort-to-refocus-plan/