The United States Air Force is calling on the defense industry to build a light attack aircraft on the cheap to fight all the counter-insurgency wars it seems to actually be fighting over the past 20 years. It’s a sea change from over three decades of procurement strategy, and it might just work.
In addition to having something less expensive and more practical for taking on ISIS in Syria than Russia in World War III, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein the Air Force doesn’t want to wait too long for the next light attack aircraft, either.
“This is not something we’re looking to do a lot of research and development on,” he said, according to Defense News. “This is commercial, off-the-shelf that we can rapidly employ.”
The demo for aircraft builders to show the service how it can address its low-threat and cost needs will take place sometime this summer at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The effort, dubbed OA-X, is designed to determine if it makes sense to budget for low-cost aircraft that can be deployed to conduct “low-threat missions,” or ones where the U.S. military doesn’t expect a ton of anti-air resistance. The Islamic State, for instance, doesn’t exactly bristle with high-tech air superiority aircraft.
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http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-u-s-military-finally-wants-to-buy-a-plane-for-righ-1792951592Bout bloody time. Using multi million dollar aircraft on missions an armed Cessna would be perfectly adequate for is pretty damned stupid.
