Low-Cost Warplanes Draw Attention - WSJ.com
Air Tractor hopes reconfigured planes a hit at Paris air show : Local : Times Record News
PARIS -- Some of the warplanes drawing the most attention at this year's Paris Air Show are some of the slowest.
Aerospace and defense companies are trying to capitalize on the growing appeal of low-cost planes packed with high-tech surveillance gear and weapons. These planes are suddenly in vogue as the costliest warplanes are falling out of favor at the Pentagon.
At the Le Bourget airfield outside Paris, Air Tractor Inc., of Olney, Texas, is displaying its prototype Air Truck AT-802U, which is essentially a two-seat combat-ready crop-duster with weapons and advanced electronics.
Its chunky no-nonsense looks are brutish enough to make passing generals stop and stare. It 8,000-pound payload of missiles, rockets, cannons and bombs offers a contrasting image of air warfare to the larger, sleeker jet fighters that cost tens of millions of dollars and are the usual show-stoppers here.
"One of the things people are most surprised by is all the munitions hanging off of it," said Lee Jackson, an Air Tractor design engineer.
L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and Alliant Techsystems Inc. are among the major defense companies also showing off unarmed turboprop surveillance planes at the show. Executives at the companies say the demand for real-time battlefield intelligence is growing for the U.S. military, particularly with increasing numbers of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
L-3 has provided the U.S. Air Force with surveillance planes based on a converted Hawker Beechcraft design that began operating in Iraq last week. Development of the plane had been a Pentagon priority under Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
"There's an unabated appetite" for battlefield intelligence and surveillance, said L-3 Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Strianese. "That unblinking eye is becoming more and more critical."
Air Tractor's Air Truck, with a 210 miles per hour top speed, will never be a stand-in for the Air Force's F-22 Raptor, the kind of high-tech marvel that keeps enemies away so planes like an Air Truck can operate. But Mr. Gates, who plans to end F-22 production, is focusing on fighting insurgents and buying less-expensive weapons systems, making such planes increasingly attractive.
This type of plane is appealing for the U.S. Air Force, whose Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, was a special-operations turboprop-transport-plane pilot. The U.S. Air Force wants to build up the air wings of foreign militaries in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan to help fight insurgents. The U.S. could help facilitate sales to these countries.
It is a formula the U.S. used successfully against guerrillas in Vietnam. Relatively low-tech propeller and jet planes commonly used to teach pilots were loaded up with weapons to do everything from act as flying artillery for far-flung outposts to help rescue downed pilots.
Stephen Biddle, a counterinsurgency expert and senior fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said such low-tech planes require less maintenance and can operate from smaller airfields, unlike fast-moving fighter bombers. That allows them to be based closer to combat forces who often are living and operating among locals in rural areas.
The planes also can help address an acute concern among top military officers about the strategic implications of accidental civilian casualties caused by U.S. airpower. "Somebody roaring by at 500 miles per hour has a harder time of distinguishing between civilians and insurgents," Mr. Biddle said.
Flying at telephone-pole heights makes a plane an easier target, but Air Tractor's Mr. Jackson said added armor and other built-in safety features, such as landing gear that crumples to protect the fuselage in a crash, make the plane safer. The U.S. State Department has flown armored crop-spraying planes for drug-eradication in South America that have been shot at repeatedly. "They've taken rounds and they come back," Mr. Jackson said.
Air Tractor hopes reconfigured planes a hit at Paris air show : Local : Times Record News
PARIS -- Some of the warplanes drawing the most attention at this year's Paris Air Show are some of the slowest.
Aerospace and defense companies are trying to capitalize on the growing appeal of low-cost planes packed with high-tech surveillance gear and weapons. These planes are suddenly in vogue as the costliest warplanes are falling out of favor at the Pentagon.
At the Le Bourget airfield outside Paris, Air Tractor Inc., of Olney, Texas, is displaying its prototype Air Truck AT-802U, which is essentially a two-seat combat-ready crop-duster with weapons and advanced electronics.
Its chunky no-nonsense looks are brutish enough to make passing generals stop and stare. It 8,000-pound payload of missiles, rockets, cannons and bombs offers a contrasting image of air warfare to the larger, sleeker jet fighters that cost tens of millions of dollars and are the usual show-stoppers here.
"One of the things people are most surprised by is all the munitions hanging off of it," said Lee Jackson, an Air Tractor design engineer.
L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and Alliant Techsystems Inc. are among the major defense companies also showing off unarmed turboprop surveillance planes at the show. Executives at the companies say the demand for real-time battlefield intelligence is growing for the U.S. military, particularly with increasing numbers of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
L-3 has provided the U.S. Air Force with surveillance planes based on a converted Hawker Beechcraft design that began operating in Iraq last week. Development of the plane had been a Pentagon priority under Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
"There's an unabated appetite" for battlefield intelligence and surveillance, said L-3 Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Strianese. "That unblinking eye is becoming more and more critical."
Air Tractor's Air Truck, with a 210 miles per hour top speed, will never be a stand-in for the Air Force's F-22 Raptor, the kind of high-tech marvel that keeps enemies away so planes like an Air Truck can operate. But Mr. Gates, who plans to end F-22 production, is focusing on fighting insurgents and buying less-expensive weapons systems, making such planes increasingly attractive.
This type of plane is appealing for the U.S. Air Force, whose Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, was a special-operations turboprop-transport-plane pilot. The U.S. Air Force wants to build up the air wings of foreign militaries in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan to help fight insurgents. The U.S. could help facilitate sales to these countries.
It is a formula the U.S. used successfully against guerrillas in Vietnam. Relatively low-tech propeller and jet planes commonly used to teach pilots were loaded up with weapons to do everything from act as flying artillery for far-flung outposts to help rescue downed pilots.
Stephen Biddle, a counterinsurgency expert and senior fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said such low-tech planes require less maintenance and can operate from smaller airfields, unlike fast-moving fighter bombers. That allows them to be based closer to combat forces who often are living and operating among locals in rural areas.
The planes also can help address an acute concern among top military officers about the strategic implications of accidental civilian casualties caused by U.S. airpower. "Somebody roaring by at 500 miles per hour has a harder time of distinguishing between civilians and insurgents," Mr. Biddle said.
Flying at telephone-pole heights makes a plane an easier target, but Air Tractor's Mr. Jackson said added armor and other built-in safety features, such as landing gear that crumples to protect the fuselage in a crash, make the plane safer. The U.S. State Department has flown armored crop-spraying planes for drug-eradication in South America that have been shot at repeatedly. "They've taken rounds and they come back," Mr. Jackson said.
