Here comes Sky Warden, the crop duster that’s SOCOM’s newest armed overwatch aircraft
U.S. special operations forces have a new eye in the sky to rely on.
BY JARED KELLER | PUBLISHED MAY 13, 2023 5:14 PM EDT
TECH & TACTICS
NEWS
AT-802U Sky Warden armed overwatch
The AT-802U Sky Warden. (L3Harris/Air Tractor).
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After years in the making, U.S. Special Operations Command’s dream of a fleet of brand new multi-role “armed overwatch” aircraft is about to become a reality.
Defense contractors L3Harris and Air Tractor, which won a $3 billion contract to produce the aircraft last August, have officially entered low-rate initial production of their single-engine turboprop AT-802U Sky Warden light attack aircraft for SOCOM, Flight Global reports.
Speaking at the Special Operations Forces Week conference in Tampa, Florida this week, SOCOM acquisition executive Jim Smith confirmed that production run, stating that the command was “very pleased with the progress,” per Flight Global’s reporting from the conference.
SOCOM’s Armed Overwatch program calls for a total fleet of 75 aircraft, and the command has been eyeing its own fleet of light-attack aircraft since at least 2017, as our colleagues at The War Zone previously reported.
The aircraft is intended to provide U.S. special operations forces with “crewed deployable, affordable, and sustainable aircraft systems capable of executing Close Air Support (CAS), precision strike, and armed [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] requirements in austere and permissive environments for use in irregular warfare operations,” according to the command’s fiscal year 2024 budget request.
https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/at-802u-sky-warden-special-operations-command-armed-overwatch-low-rate-production/
