Super Tucano Supporters In Shock: AF To Pick Tucano Or AT-6 Without Flying Either

[HarvestMoon]

Super Tucano Supporters In Shock: AF To Pick Tucano Or AT-6 Without Flying Either
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Published: May 7, 2012

The Air Force will choose a winner in its troubled Light Air Support competition without actually flying the two contending planes, the Embraer Super Tucano and the Hawker-Beechcraft AT-6, and it will even disregard what it has data from the limited "flight demonstration" it conducted last year.

That's a disturbing departure from best practice in a program that has already been an agony for the Air Force, with the delivery of ground-attack planes to the fledgling Afghan air force now delayed by 15 months, enough to miss not one but two "fighting seasons" in Afghanistan. A chagrined Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has publicly pledged "we'll work our asses off" to get it right. But according to AOL Defense interviews with both corporate camps, the revised Request For Proposal released at 5:16 on Friday -- the traditional time to bury awkward news -- skips the important step of having the Air Force actually see how both planes fly before it makes its decision, tentatively due in January.

Read more: http://defense.aol.com/2012/05/07/super-tucano-supporters-in-shock-af-to-pick-tucano-or-at-6-with/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000058?test=latestnews

[Joe-Nathan]

Man those little planes look like they would be shot down by an assault rifle. But I bet they fly like the old P-51 Mustangs, cool a chit to fly.

[HarvestMoon]

Man those little planes look like they would be shot down by an assault rifle. But I bet they fly like the old P-51 Mustangs, cool a chit to fly.

Fun to fly, just like it would be fun to drive a '62 vette ragtop.

[kobayashi]

Hmmm...Soros?

http://the-american-journal.com/airc...s-connections/

[Squirrelmonkey]

So these props wre replacing a-10 warthogs? Uh...going backwards much?

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[HarvestMoon]

So these props wre replacing a-10 warthogs? Uh...going backwards much?

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I believe these are to be given to the Afghans.

[Joe-Nathan]

And I think the Warthogs have proven that they are still needed for close air support. Slow as they are, but they are built like a tank. Can take a licking and keep on ticking. By far my favorite war bird in our arsenal!

[HarvestMoon]

They could have brought back the A-1 Skyraider, which the A-10 replaced.

300px-A-1H_VA-152_USS_Oriskany_1966.jpg

[Squirrelmonkey]

Love the a_10.....

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[HarvestMoon]

MuNkIe, you are to read about the A-1 Skyraider. They were designed & built at the end of WWII, but was too late to be deployed in WWII. They could carry the same poundage of bombs as a B-17 and were to be carrier based. They have shot down jets in Koren. And they were used for Search & Rescue in North Vietnam because they could stay on station a very long time.

[kobayashi]

So these props wre replacing a-10 warthogs? Uh...going backwards much?

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

MuNkIe, you are to read about the A-1 Skyraider. They were designed & built at the end of WWII, but was too late to be deployed in WWII. They could carry the same poundage of bombs as a B-17 and were to be carrier based. They have shot down jets in Koren. And they were used for Search & Rescue in North Vietnam because they could stay on station a very long time.

Both were good!!!