• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Air Tractor Warfare

With the competition for dirt between cash croppers in our part of the country, I can see those coming into play here in Ontario.

When they're not using them to fight over that farm that's come up for rent, they could likely equip them with a sprayer boom for applying herbicides or fungicide to tasseling corn instead of spraying bullets . . . you know - spears into pruning hooks . . .

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Or maybe that's not what you had in mind, Mike? :wink:
 
This Ag Tractor ground attack aircraft is being proposed due to the Pentagon's request for a light ground attack aircraft. This thing will be a single prop aircraft with a fly away cost of $ 3 million USD. This is very cheap compared to a 100 million dollar F-35.
The Ag tractor is the dark horse in this competition since it doesn't have a flying example yet. The plane with the leg up is Embraer Super Tucano since it already has examples in use and requires little development work. In fact the Navy has leased an example for use in Afghanistan. The other likely candidate is the AT-6 Texan II since they are already using the plane. This would require more development work on armoring the cockpit and integrating weapon control systems and thus increasing costs.
 
I like it. (of course, I'm not a pilot). There are a couple of videos on Military.com, one explained their being knocked out of the competition was the lack of retractable landing gear. I think that'd be a plus, one less thing to go wrong and hold up well to rough take-off and landings. One hell of a crop duster.

http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do;jsessionid=EAFD5F73B94F3E02547B31071DCE70E4?displayContent=217668&page=1

http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do;jsessionid=EAFD5F73B94F3E02547B31071DCE70E4?displayContent=217614&page=4
 
Besides the lack of retractable landing gear the Ag Tractor also lacked sufficient cruise speed to meet the RFP. Remember the Ag Tractor has yet to add an Armored cockpit or integrate the weapon control systems despite what was hanging from the hard points under the wings. This will impact performance greatly. Electronics and armor are heavy.
Something else to keep in mind is that a smaller fighter competition is being held in Brazil besides that in India. The purchase of some A-29 Super Tucanos with armor and weapon systems already integrated would be an excellent offset for Brazil purchasing F/A-18E/F or F-35C from the United States. This would meet the quicker and cheaper mantra at the DOD these days. Light attack and trainers tend to be sold as part of FMS offset deals so something like this would not surprise me.
 
VLS_GUY said:
Besides the lack of retractable landing gear the Ag Tractor also lacked sufficient cruise speed to meet the RFP. Remember the Ag Tractor has yet to add an Armored cockpit or integrate the weapon control systems despite what was hanging from the hard points under the wings. This will impact performance greatly. Electronics and armor are heavy.
Something else to keep in mind is that a smaller fighter competition is being held in Brazil besides that in India. The purchase of some A-29 Super Tucanos with armor and weapon systems already integrated would be an excellent offset for Brazil purchasing F/A-18E/F or F-35C from the United States. This would meet the quicker and cheaper mantra at the DOD these days. Light attack and trainers tend to be sold as part of FMS offset deals so something like this would not surprise me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was wondering about protection for the pilot. No titanium bathtub like the Warthog's. (or so I've been told it has.)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top