How much would it cost to just mass produce some WW II warbirds for this sort of thing? A P-40 with its six fifties would easily take out this stuff.
23 thoughts on “The Air Force’s Overkill Problem”
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How much would it cost to just mass produce some WW II warbirds for this sort of thing? A P-40 with its six fifties would easily take out this stuff.
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Well if you want a WWII-era aircraft for ground attack, then the one you want is the P-47 Thunderbolt.
The P-40 (and 51) had liquid cooled engines and one bullet in the radiator dropped the airplane.
The P-47 had a radial engine and those are TOUGH. Whole cylinders were blown away and the engine kept on running. It was a solid and possibly the premiere ground attack aircraft of WWII.
The Corsair had the same engine but I don’t know if it could carry the same load.
Thing is – today’s pilots would have to learn how to fly a tailwheel – not sure they are up to it 🙂
Signed,
Van’s RV-8 tail dragger owner and pilot
The Corsair was made in a specialized ground attack version called the AU-1. Likely a reasonable match or better than the P-47.
I did my taildragger endorsement in a Vans RV-6 that I had been flight test engineer on during the then Australian regulations for home builts.
How much would it cost to just mass produce some WW II warbirds for this sort of thing?
Completely out of the question for no other reason than the high power piston engines that rely heavily on highly leaded gasoline that powered these aircraft and have no other use and haven’t been built in a half century.. The way to go would be an armed turboprop trainer (as mentioned) that fits easily into modern logistics networks. Also, there is no need to bring back the taildragger landing gear configuration.
If the Air Force does go this route they really should strongly consider bringing back enlisted pilots to contain operating costs.
Wasn’t USAF looking for a new trainer? Seems you could kill 2 birds with one… uh… bird… as long as you didn’t let mission creep cripple the design.
“as long as you didn’t let mission creep cripple the design”
The perennial problem with modern military (and other govt, especially IT) procurement.
It has to be supersonic!!!! lol
The irony is that the USAF gave this mission to the drones because they don’t care about it, and kept pilots in air supremacy fighters because that’s sexy. This is exactly backwards: air supremacy is the first things the AIs will beat us at (I’m almost sure they already have) but it’ll be a long time before they can figure out close air support.
Not hardly. Lobbing a Hellfire by remote is (relatively) easy, but the one time they tried arming a Reaper with Stinger missiles, it got blasted by an Iraqi MiG-25. So far there are no UAS built for ACM (dogfighting), and there’s none on the drawing boards. We’re a long, long way from EDI
There are plenty of propeller planes around. No need to get a WWII design. Although I did hear someone clamoring to get the Skyraider back or something like that.
The Sandy/Spad (Skyraider) was a GREAT CAS airplane.
We’re acquiring an uncertain number of EMB 314 Super Tucano COIN/CAS airplanes as the A-29B for the Afghan air force. Might not be a bad idea to get some for ourselves.
Great airplane. A couple of hundred of Super Tucanos would be cheap, useful, reliable, and available pretty much as soon as we could write a check. So, of course, we’ll pay a US manufacturer a few billion bucks to duplicate it domestically.
It’ll take a war to get the mix right which will probably be over before they do. I’m such a pessimist these days!
We could wargame this. Give each player a certain amount of resources to allocate and keep track of the game results. The problem is when some general or admiral wins a war with Chevys and pinewood boats the brass will ignore them.
Turn it into a videogame and have the gamers figure out good strategies while turning a profit.
“when some general or admiral wins a war with Chevys and pinewood boats”
like when the retired general ‘defeated’ the US military when he was recalled to play Iraqi forces in a wargame before the Gulf War. They stopped the game and told him to move his forces and also told him he wasn’t allowed to do certain things that are physically possible.
Also read where someone once won a naval war game using nothing more than sports-cruisers equipped with a couple of missiles. Think of a simpler Chinese Houbei Class Missile Boat, the quantity you could buy for a couple of Nuke Carrier’s basic cost budget ($24b-$28b)
Maybe this would still be overkill but that is great for the guys on the ground to some degree, just mass produce A-10’s and C-130 Gunships. Modifying a trainer sounds like a good idea too. We should definitely have a large scale capability to lay down lots of cheap lead, or possibly lasers, rather than expensive missiles.
But missiles are sexy, especially when someone else is paying the bill.
The USAF is converting 32 MC-130J aircraft to AC-130J Ghostriders, armed with 30mm cannon and a 105mm Howitzer, with plans to add a “directed energy weapon” in the 2020s, but they’re somewhere around $245 million a plane.
Fairchild Republic closed the ‘Hog plant in ’83, and the name itself was rendered defunct in ’07 after passing through four or five holding companies. All the tools and dies have long been recycled, so you’d be starting over from scratch on those.
“This approach could provide more cockpits to absorb and season a greater quantity of fighter pilots and provide 4th and 5th generation aircraft the required training time to prepare for high-end threats and the operational tempo relief to extend their service life.”
This quote shows me that this is turf protection, not a serious attempt by the Air Force. Give the role to the Army and let them figure out what airframes to use for the job.
Thinking A-1 Skyraider.
Putting a PW127 gas turbine in a P-40 would give one a pretty spiffy aircraft. It fits nicely in the envelope of the P-40’s Allison V-1710, weighs 500 pounds less, and delivers 2,750 HP against the Allison’s 1,500 HP (that’s on military power, as well).
Weighing 500 pounds less might adversely impact CG, unless you also added or relocated other equipment.
I’d add armor and an ejection seat the to cockpit.
US military procurement is a disaster that will cause the US to lose wars in the future. Gear that is optimized for consumption of public revenue streams isn’t going to fare well against serious opponents.