A sad day for the soldier/seaman/airman on the ground.... (A-10/CAS Discussion)

Great plane, great pilot...this has some helmet cam and and actual cockpit audio after the missile hit.




He says: "They still haven't found the seat cushion because my pucker-factor was so high" Bwaaahhaaaaaaaaaahaaa
 
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"... like drones, the OV-10 can loiter over the battlefield for hours, but unlike drones, the pilot has greater visibility of the battlefield and can see the location of enemy forces and attack them directly with machine guns and more bombs and missiles than a drone can carry. "

The fucking lightbulb in Uncle Fester's mouth just lit the fuck up. Again.

We worked with Marine OV-10s many times as spotter planes. Very cool effective little platforms. Great aircraft. They will find the Bad Guys and direct you to them.
 
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Red Flag 1 said:
The C-130 and all it's various levels of outfitting is an airframe that I have always loved. From simple, short field in country cargo, hurricane taskings, to the AC-130's, I just love the rugged bastards.
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More than 6 decades of service and it has performed the vast majority of the mission sets possible (including air to air engagement) ... What's not to love?
 
Totentanz said:
More than 6 decades of service and it has performed the vast majority of the mission sets possible (including air to air engagement) ... What's not to love?
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For use on IG events in the mid to late '80's, we would use C-141's, and C-130's. Every C-141 developed problems that would ground the aircraft for the length of our deployment. I would then have to get a second aircraft on short notice, not an easy task, and we would get C-130's.Wen we left the base, the C-141 we requested, was still on thew ground; usually "hydraulic" woes. My last year on the Team, we avoided C-141's like the plague. On one occasion, we had the the great luck of having access to a C-5B @ Dover AFB. The C-130's were the ones that I loved working with the best. It was one of the few aircraft that we could use to travel in reverse on the ground, a big plus for Hi-Jackings.
 
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Ocoka One said:
"... like drones, the OV-10 can loiter over the battlefield for hours, but unlike drones, the pilot has greater visibility of the battlefield and can see the location of enemy forces and attack them directly with machine guns and more bombs and missiles than a drone can carry. "

The fucking lightbulb in Uncle Fester's mouth just lit the fuck up. Again.

We worked with Marine OV-10s many times as spotter planes. Very cool effective little platforms. Great aircraft. They will find the Bad Guys and direct you to them.

But OMG, what is happening to the vaunted F35, The Super Plane, being upstaged by these grizzled relics from the past, these slow-moving dinosaurs, OV-10s, A-10s, it's obviously some nefarious conspiracy by traitors who like planes that end in "TEN"...a concerted attack on progress and technology and big fat budgets and defense contracts and cigars and can we say it??? 'MERICA!!! Get thee begone SATAN and take your mothballs back to the graveyard at Davis-Monthan...Please God, come up with some fucking practical use for our F35!!!
Please, Putin, attack us so we can justify the hoopla!!!
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Desert Storm doomed the OV-10.

We hadn't upgraded them to counter IR missiles and the Marines lost two IIRC.
I can't believe we couldn't mount the disco ball on them and make them effective again.
 
DA SWO said:
Desert Storm doomed the OV-10.

We hadn't upgraded them to counter IR missiles and the Marines lost two IIRC.
I can't believe we couldn't mount the disco ball on them and make them effective again.
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The article doesn't say if these two Navy OV10s have been upgraded. I'm kind of assuming no since ISIL isn't known for firing heat seekers. But if they're going to reactivate more of them for support missions with SOF they might want to consider it.
 
While I think bringing back the OV10s is awesome, I'm puzzled as to why we are considering a platform that seems to be inferior in every aspect to the A10, to appease people who don't want to see the A10 replaced.
This seems to me to be a case of "we have to get rid of the A10s, we can have later F15/16/35s or earlier OV10s".
Why are we so opposed to keeping the A10s?
With all the arguments about the vulnerabilities of the A10s from the USAF, we are seriously considering the OV10s? Really? :rolleyes: O_o
Fuck it, bring back the Skyraider, it was a better CAS platform than the OV10.
 
pardus said:
While I think bringing back the OV10s is awesome, I'm puzzled as to why we are considering a platform that seems to be inferior in every aspect to the A10, to appease people who don't want to see the A10 replaced.
This seems to me to be a case of "we have to get rid of the A10s, we can have later F15/16/35s or earlier OV10s".
Why are we so opposed to keeping the A10s?
With all the arguments about the vulnerabilities of the A10s from the USAF, we are seriously considering the OV10s? Really? :rolleyes: O_o
Fuck it, bring back the Skyraider, it was a better CAS platform than the OV10.
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I'd like to the cost for refurbishing an OV-10 vs. purchasing new A-29's. I suspect a few things happened:
- this is a one-off test of the concept, not the airframe
- they pulled this from Bureau of Land Management/ some civvie contractor for use. That cut down significantly on time to refurb/ prep the airframe
- Someone, somewhere sees the writing on the wall WRT the fight against ISIS and future conflicts PLUS the F-35's inability to do the job while the A-10 is being taken out back, Ol' Yeller style. I'll bet JSOC or someone with some gas made this happen because they don't trust the -35 and they see how expensive it is to operate Cold War a/c in the desert toilets in which we fight.

It is heartbreaking because the topic came up time and time again in 200x and no one moved. Now we find ourselves in a war which can use the capability but not as much as say Afghanistan a decade ago, so we'll spend the money? It shows how incredibly shortsighted and territorial we've become and why we cannot, will not win another war unless it lasts less than 10 days and involves nearly every tank in our arsenal. Otherwise, put an L on the scoreboard.
 
pardus said:
While I think bringing back the OV10s is awesome, I'm puzzled as to why we are considering a platform that seems to be inferior in every aspect to the A10, to appease people who don't want to see the A10 replaced.
This seems to me to be a case of "we have to get rid of the A10s, we can have later F15/16/35s or earlier OV10s".
Why are we so opposed to keeping the A10s?
With all the arguments about the vulnerabilities of the A10s from the USAF, we are seriously considering the OV10s? Really? :rolleyes: O_o
Fuck it, bring back the Skyraider, it was a better CAS platform than the OV10.
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As much as I love the OV10s, the article, I think, gives waay too much emphasis on the OV10s role as a CAS platform, when, in fact, it's better suited in an observation role. We never once used OV10s for CAS, it just wasn't done. But they were excellent spotter aircraft, they could stay over your AO a long time and with the optics onboard they could spot the bad guys and direct you to them even if it took several hours. I can see them being used in a limited CAS role, maybe in a danger close contact or where their visual capabilities and slower speed would make their use practical...but what do we really want, usually, when we call in CAS? The kind of shock and awe that an A10, a Skyraider, an AC130, or attack helos can bring to the scene.

I didn't get the impression from the article that the OVs were being tested as a replacement for A10s already in theater. I think the gist of all this is mission-driven, the A10s were deemed necessary to the mission by the guys on the ground and a strong message was relayed by political pressure to the high end of the chain. And that got everybody thinking, hey, what else to we have in the boneyard that might be useful here?

And BTW, do we have any Skyraiders still laying around? Because yes, it would fit in with what we're trying to do, and it's a whole lot scarier than an OV10.
 
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This was not a conventional initiative. Interesting people were doing interesting things and the conventional side went, "Hey, we should try that."
 
VAL-4 "Black Ponies" in Vietnam. The Black Pony insignia can be seen on the OV-10G+ (thanks @Raksasa Kotor) test aircraft. Not knowing the new specs and the cost/ time required to acquire and convert -10's to the new configuration vs. an A-29, the planes appear, based on open source info, to have similar loadouts and performance specs. Cost of operation is another concern so I don't see how a twin engine could beat a single engine in that category.

I suspect the -10G+ is a better platform. At worst it won't lag much behind the A-29 but I'm sure they are easier and cheaper to acquire. An A-29 appropriations bill would be killed by Kansas legislatures. The AF loathes CAS and given the Navy's history and close association with the Marine Corps it would make sense for VAL or VMAL squadrons to pop up.

Black Pony Buno 155417 - Side #105

OV-10Bronco.Net - VAL-4's OV-10 Technical Reports <- A great bit of history.

The Story Of The OV-10A Bronco

Ocoka One said:
And BTW, do we have any Skyraiders still laying around? Because yes, it would fit in with what we're trying to do, and it's a whole lot scarier than an OV10.
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That's a non-starter. The handful left are in museums and if they existed in mass quantity they use radial engines. The A-1 could fly to the moon and back on a single tank of gas and no one will touch it because of the reciprocating engine. DC-3's and C-7 Caribous are still in use with PT-6 turbines. Off the top of my head, the only reciprocating aircraft left in the US inventory would be S-2 trackers for wildfires and I'll bet some of those have turbines.
 
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