Friday - April 15, 2011

LAAR She Blows! Part Two

Alright, I took a few hours off to eat and hang out and watch tonight’s episode of Fringe. Ok, so where was I?  Ah yes ...

Such a small plane needs to be fairly low maintenance, and it needs to be able to engage the enemy out past the range of heavy machine guns or smaller 20-40mm anti-aircraft fire. That’s about the best we’re going to face from drug cartels, tin hat dictators from the poorer nations, and Al Qeda in general. Anything bigger and it will be an actual war between actual nations, and we’ve got plenty of big stuff for those. But just in case the scrub army should get it’s hands on some second hand missiles, let’s write the specs to include a few million dollars worth of threat detection computers, anti-missile systems, chaff dispensers and so forth. Seriously, I’m only being a little sarcastic. The specs I could find read less like an airplane and more like a toy box:

The aircraft will carry ordnance and external stores on four underwing pylons. Typical air-to-ground ordnance will include an aerial cannon, two 500 lb class guided-munitions and a variety lighter weapons, such as 2.75” (guided or unguided) rockets, rail-launched guided missiles (such as the Hellfire II), unguided free-fall munitions, flares etc. It will be capable operating on five - hour missions, flying distances of 900 nautical miles without refueling, up to a ceiling of 30,000 ft. The aircraft will operate from austere, forward operating bases, semi-prepared surfaces including dirt, grass, gravel, surfaces. Ground support operations are not rquired ro service the aircraft, - other than available field fuel stores available for re-fueling operations.
...
Configured as tandem cockpit with duplicated controls and modern digital avionics, LAAR will be designed for day or night operation. The front cockpit will also be fitted with a HUD supporting air-to-ground functionality, displaying the continuously computed impact point (CCIP), continuously computed release point (CCRP), strafe, and manual weapon aiming computation/release.

The ISR systems on board will comprise a modern, stabilized multi-sensor electro-optical payload with geo-locating accuracy, integrating a day channel, night (thermal) channel, and multiple laser emitters, such as rangefinder, designator, target marker and spot-tracker. LAAR will be equipped with communications systems, integrating voice-and-data links, enabling simultaneous operation of three separate channels, in addition to multiple datalinks supporting transfer messaging, images and full motion -video supporting Remote Operations Video Enhanced Receiver (ROVER), operated by ground units and the ground forward air control / joint terminal attack control (FAC/JTAC) systems. LAAR will operate fully integrated with traditional Command and Control (C2) concepts and organizations, networked with current theater air tasking order (ATO) and airspace control order (ACO) dissemination networks.

Yeah. You can get a serious case of acronymia reading these things. So they want a little plane that has all the big plane gizmos inside, with a multi-channel real-time data link and one of those rotating ball spy camera thingies like on the UAVs. Or, as the guy from Beechcraft put it 7 months ago:

The AT-6 is a structurally enhanced Beechcraft T-6A/B airframe with a more powerful Pratt & Whitney PT6A-68D engine, and a Lockheed Martin A-10C Mission System that is integrated with the T-6B primary flight avionics system. It also has the same sensor suite as the MC-12W with a laser designator/range finder. ”When our airplane wakes up in the morning, it believes it’s an A-10. We call this simple integration,”

“Simple integration”. What an excellent misnomer. But if it works, go for it.

Anyway, to make a very short story even longer, it looks like two airplanes are under consideration. One, the above mentioned Beechcraft, currently called the AT-6B, made in Kansas I think, and the other one, the Brazilian Embraer Super Tucano EMB-314. They look amazingly alike.

“Still, they’re cousins,
Identical cousins and you’ll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike—
You can lose your mind,
When cousins —are two of a kind. “



Here’s where the real differences lie: the Beechcraft was built as a trainer. To make the grade as an LAAR craft, it has to have major upgrades, starting with a bigger engine with nearly 50% more power, a significantly strengthened airframe to handle that power, hardpoints designed and installed, wing redesign, and all sorts of room found for wing guns and all that fancy electronics gear. It even needs bigger tires. The Super Tucano was designed from the ground up to be a military aircraft for rough airstrips. It already has the stronger engine and body, the ISR ball turret laser target designator, hardpoints, etc. It has some of the fancy electronics, but not our latest kit.

What the Super Tucano does not have is our latest and greatest ejection seats. These things are called Zero/Zero seats, which means they can blast you out of a busted airplane far enough for your parachute to deploy safely even if the airplane itself is at zero altitude going zero speed. And our latest version can be adjusted to fit every body type from a 103lb petite woman to a fairly large 245lb man. Can such seats be retrofit? I bet they can.

What the AT-6B doesn’t have is much of any actual existence. Hawker Beechcraft sells the basic trainer to everyone, and it’s a fine little plane. Meanwhile Brazil is busy selling their little plane all around the world as a combat aircraft, garnering a great reputation in small scale military engagements and drug interdictions.  Hawker Beechcraft is redesigning their trainer in steps. Step 1 is to stick in the same engine that the Super Tucano uses ...

In additon to the bigger engine, the aircraft will get the mission system from the upgraded A-10C, with satcom, datalinks, full-motion-video downlink, missile warning, countermeasures, armor and fuel-tank protection. A high-definition color EO/IR sensor with laser designator will be carried on a hardpoint under the fuselage and six underwing stations will carry gun and rocket pods, 250lb or 500lb precision-guided bombs, Hellfire missiles and guided rockets.

The aircraft is being developed in steps. An avionics prototype, AT-1, is flying now with the CMC Electronics digital cockpit avionics and displays. This will be modified towards year-end to integrate and test tle Lockheed Martin mission system. Work has started on a second prototype, AT-2, that will have the big engine and other changes.

The Embraer folks at AFA were quick to point out that the EMB-314 doesn’t need any changes, other than specific equipment, to meet the LAAR requirement. The Super Tucano was designed from the outset as a light-attack/armed-reconnaissance/advanced trainer and has the big engine, ISR ball and even .50-cal guns in the wing.

So it looks like a game of catch-up is going on ... while we’re busy fighting 3 or 4 wars and have a screaming need for some kind of interdiction warplane to fly along our own borders.

The upgrade path isn’t completely smooth either. As you can see in the pic at the top here or inpictures of the AT-6B at airliners.net (who’s pictures I didn’t use because they’re very possessive about such things) they stuck the ISR ball on directly underneath the wings. Probably right on the center of gravity, which makes sense, until you actually fly the plane. Try tracking something when you have to turn and bank; the wing immediately gets in the way, blocking the view/signal. That’s well written up in a long flight review, here.

Do I have faith that the final AT-6B will be a fine little airplane that more than meets the design and mission criteria? Without a doubt. One of the real questions is just how badly we need such an aircraft, and in what numbers. When you draw up the multi-circle Venn diagram with all our different UAVs, our helicopters, our jet fighters, spy planes, V-22 Ospreys, and everything else we have that flies in the mix, how big is the hole that is left unfilled, and how much blood is leaking out that hole? In other words, do we really need this thing, and if we do, do we really need it right the heck now and in big numbers?

And this is where politics creeps in. “Save American Jobs!!” scream the congresscritters in DC. “Don’t outsource our weapons systems!” And they may have a point, even though a deal of this size would be exactly what Obama would have talked about when he was just down in Brazil the other week, talking with their newly elected President, who just happens to be a Marxist and a former jungle revolutionary. And lest you think our legislators are being more hypocritical than usual (we sell our military stuff the world over, but can’t buy any foreign stuff? What part of Free Trade or NAFTA/CAFTA/SAFTA is that?), the Brazilian airplane comes with an odd rider in the contract called a “Golden Share”.

The Golden Share allows the Brazilian government to maintain direct control and veto rights over the “creation and/or alteration of military programs, whether or not involving the Federative Republic of Brazil” as well as the “interruption of the supply of maintenance and replacement parts for military aircraft.”

The Brazilian government’s direct control over Embraer would put the production of the light attack and reconnaissance aircraft at the mercy and whim of Brazil’s political leaders who too often do not see eye to eye with the United States on foreign policy issues. In fact, they have been noticeably absent from the War on Terror over the last decade.

Brazil doesn’t like the no-fly thing over Libya either. I think we ran up against a similar situation during Gulf War I or II, when the Scandinavian company who made our hand grenades didn’t like our involvement there and stopped selling them to us. Or maybe it was rifle ammunition. I can’t recall. Anyway, our troops went through a shortage until we resourced.

So what’s my final opinion? Either one of these little goofy looking airplanes is probably more than enough to fight mini-wars with against rag tag armies and drug lords. Both can fly at 300mph or a touch faster, both can go more than 1000 miles on a tank of fuel. Both can attack targets from 2 miles up in the sky, an altitude where little planes are nearly invisible from the ground. Neither one of these airplanes is going to hold up for shit once actual large bullets and flack start impacting. There is a reason the Thunderbolts both old and new were so overbuilt: they could take a pounding and keep on fighting. Both of these airplanes look mighty fragile to me, especially their scrawny little wings. The cost of all the electronics goodies both use is mighty prohibitive, but that’s what happens when you demand warfare with the precision of eye surgery. Ten million dollars a plane for starters, to drop half million dollar ordnance on angry peasants who won’t earn $5000 in their entire lives and are shooting back with $200 weapons. But they can save fuel and maintenance costs!!!! Yes, but at what expense? Another billion or three? Or ten? In a way they remind me of the VW pickup truck that somebody left in the comments on the automotive post I did yesterday - sure looks great, costs a fortune, and may not really fill any existing market niche. So let’s use a little common sense for once. If we really, really need this kind of plane, and our guys are dying for the lack of it, let’s order up a bunch from Brazil right now and another bunch to use as spare parts. That way we can tell them to FO if they get uppity. And if we don’t absolutely positively have to have these, but it would be nice, then let’s stick with Hawker Beechcraft’s development, put in an iron clad order for 250 of them, and then cut funding for at least two other flight systems. I don’t care if that’s UAVs, super fighters, stealth frisbees or what. There’s only so much money to be spent on toys, and the toy box looks pretty damn full from here.

Done. Hope you’re happy John.

Below the fold are enough links to keep you reading for many hours, but there is one link there you should follow. Have fun!

Posted by Drew458     on 04/15/2011 at 09:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Military • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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