Now is the Time at SDA When We Juxtapose: Sturmovik Redux?

It looks an awful lot like a cross between the Supermarine Spitfire and the Messerschmitt Bf-109...............

I hope it is better than this one.

The Defender, is a National Film Board of Canada video production from the 1980s. Produced in Carman MB. I know the "star" of the "show" personally.

If you watch this video you will find yourself alternately crying and laughing and thinking - is this a friggin comedy or is the NFB of Canada so out to lunch as to believe the con-man's idea of a small fighter aircraft that can take on the world?

http://www.nfb.ca/film/defender/

It looks an awful lot like a bastardized cropduster to me.

otterdriver: It is a version of a cropduster.
Sure would have done a better job on Cary Grant in "North by Northwest".

Mark
Ottawa

Why don't they keep the dusting equipment installed and dust the poppy fields with roundup instead?

Defunding the militants is probably a most effective solution to reducing the conflict.

Mark, I was being facetious.

I've been saying for years we should have a turboprop Hawker Typhoon for close ground support. Cheaper and faster than attack helicopters and they can carry more bang. Now here somebody went and made one.

I was at the Canadian Warplane Heritage air show on Sunday, I got to see the Spitfire, Hurricane, P-40 Warhawk, P-51 Mustang, Wildcat, Mitchel bomber, Corsair, Firefly, the Lancaster, and a whole flock of Harvards. Plus more I can't remember right off the top of my head.

I see no reason why a single engine, single seat prop aircraft armed with the latest automatic cannon and air to ground missiles couldn't go make a mess of the Taliban for a tenth the price of any current front-line jet fighter.

Remember kids, if its cheaper you can get MORE. What would you rather have, four CF-18s or two squadrons of Tiffys?

What a grand idea...dust the crops while shooting ground hogs and gophers and other varmints. Now that's efficient!

The Wescam system is I believe Canadian (Burlington Ont), I heard they make a targetting system it can circumcise a flea from 1000 yds away.

Good idea. You can dust your drops & get rid of coyotes at the same time.

Yeah, well, I think you could do better.

Nothing wrong about those, but I think you could, for not much more money, get yourself a MUCH better platform.

I was positing the other day a WWII "mosquito" but updated:

2 engines, two pilots ( There's a _lot_ going on in Close Air Support, and I like the idea of one guy keeping the plane in the air and avoiding other drones and aircraft, and guy #2 concentrating on keep the ordnance on target and away from friendlies.) some beefy landing gear and some armour. Also two tails.

Think scaled down Republic A-10 minus the monster 30mmm cannon and without jets, but all the redundancy and interchangeability.

Oh wait, OV-10D Bronco. Done. Can we go home now?

circa $500K per copy. You can get dozens of them. They have search and rescue uses too.

I'd be willing to consider a project for a new design, it's kind of long inthe tooth.

Or AT-6B modded Harvard trainer, as proposed by CASR:

http://www.casr.ca/mp-army-aviation-coin.htm

Turboprop isn't a bad word if there's no air-superiority problem.

ron in kelowna, I just watched that little film. You'd think a guy who rebuilds warbirds would learn something from them, but apparently not.

Heavy payload and lots out loiter time, that's the key. Hence why the US was using the Skyraider in Vietnam.

Also, the small state of Biafra used their Minicons to hold off Nigeria.

best analogy I can think of its a modern version of a WWII German Stuka dive bomber in functionality.

where were u in 2002?

First time I saw one was south of Medicine Hat. The pilot was spraying canola and he was spraying 2 fields at a time, by flying UNDERNEATH the power line.

Just awesome.

Find the right nose gun, and market a mini-warthog, AKA the A-10 Thunderbolt.

A1 Skyraider.

The idea is not remotely new, and is very good.

A1 Skyraider.

The idea is not remotely new, and is very good.

(By which I mean, not that the Il-2 wasn't one of the first, but that it's not like the idea was abandoned after WW2.

Such a thing might be a bit wobbly against widespread SAMs, though, or even heavy machineguns.

That's the advantage of the A-10; heavy armor and countermeasures.)

Sigivald, there was a Skyraider at the air show on Sunday. Its nearly as big an airplane as the Mitchell bomber.

Hans Ulrich Rudel, http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/stories/hans-ulrich-rudel-tank-destroyer-349.html

Air superiority requires long term commitment, something the West has shown little stomach for in the last few decades.

Mini wars don't require it.

New market, and if you think the Russians, Chinese and Indians are not moving in that direction, think again.

PULL!!!!

I think you guys are missing the bigger point, which is that a hard-nosed and very cynical businessman has decided that there's a good market in creating low cost weapons which are obviously and exclusively intended for use by dictators and tin-hat oppressors. This plane is an ideal platform if you want to use it on unruly elements of your own populace who have nothing better than light arms, and isn't much use for anything else. The sheer, calculated callousness of this company is breathtaking.

Modern insurgents would make lawn ornaments from these things. Such a plane seems designed for cheap crowd control in African dictatorships, or maybe napalming South American drug farms, but it's not gonna stand up to anything bigger than small arms fire. I wouldn't wanna see our pilots flying these anywhere but in training.

It looks like a skinny version of a Westland Wyvern.

Heh, ya beat me to the punch Chris.

Ah, so we, in the west, should be above all that competition nonsense?

dream on.....

Besides this all a very academic exercise, between DND purchasings notorious incompetence and labyrithine ways and the governments lackadaisical non-interest we might as well be pushing on a rope.

Wouldn't a large drone work better? It'd cost about as much, but if it got shot down, we wouldn't lose a pilot. It could still equip all the goodies we want.

In NB we use the Air Tractor as a water-bomber (http://tinyurl.com/6hju58c). But one type of bomber seems to be as good as another. Before the Air Tractor they used converted TBM Avengers to fight forest fires.

There used to be a number of similar platforms over the years, starting with P-51s and Turbo Mustang. Skyrider is certainly one. There is also Pukara, which is still in inventory in Latin America. The attraction is the long loiter time, low acquisition and hourly cost, maintainability. The disadvantage is low survivability.

Great idea in theory and bombing gophers, but a cheap RPG can make the walk back through the front lines tough. Initially, they would be able to do something but then the big flyswatter would come out and BAM, they're gone!
As much as I hate to say it (gulp) paying nerds to fly drones out of mom's basement is scraper in the long run if you ignore the glass parking lot scenario.

Texas-Canuck

RPG's are inconvenient to utility helos like Black Hawks but are unguided so nailing an attack helo or a fixed wing is purely luck....and an invitation to have the sky rain bullets or worse.

Problem is there are nearly as many STRELLAs(SOVIET shoulder launched AA heat seekers) loose in the world as RPGs.

Here's the math:
2 802U AIR TRACTORS + 2 trained pilots VS 2 illiterates with STRELLAs = 2 illiterates having bragging rights.

The US did not build/deploy A10's as a technical exercise.

http://www.daveweinbaum.com/A10.html

I think that this would be a practical and cost-effective option worth consideration. Given that there are Kiowa Warrior choppers trolling at tree-top level for insurgents already I do not see that these planes would be more vulnerable given modern countermeasures and armor. Those Kiowas would land at a FOB to rearm and refuel and the pilots would hop out and give the aircraft a look over for bullet holes for goodness sake.

I am no expert but IIRC, those old turboprops were simple and could take a hammering back in the day and keep going. I wouldn't be suprized if modern tech would make them highly survivable.

But, as much merit as there is, Fred2 stated the reality.

sasquatch is right. Whoever is ordering these is most likely wanting a cheap weapon for basically unarmed mob or rebel control and obviously has command of the local air space.

This will never be acquired, regardless of how well thought-out the design, (which includes an armoured cockpit). The problem is Air Force culture, in Canada, the US and elsewhere. Air Forces want 'faster, higher, newer', and really don't want to do ground support. Something like this is too slow and low for the Air Force. Consider how often the US Air Force has tried to get rid of the A-10, depite acknowedging its utility. They only use it now because US congress suggested turning the A-10s over to the Army!

IL2 Sturmovik is the best flight sim ever, I'm fine with engaging in combat circa 1942 on my computer, wouldn't want to "loiter" in 2011 in a crop duster with guns though.

Strela (of varying vintage) is nowhere as available as some made it out. There used to be a lot of talk about the danger of MANPADs to airliners, but very, very few attacks. I only remember one that actually hit its target: the DHL plane in Baghdad back in 2004 or so. And that's it! The problem with Strela in particular is its short shelf life. Without Russians actually shipping them right now, they are not a threat.

Um... so how does the pilot get out of a airborne armed cropduster when a round takes out the engine block? Does he open the door and yell "Geronimo?"

I imagine the A-10 has an ejection seat.

Peter,

Lot more aircraft were hit with MANPADS in Iraq than the DHL. The Americans actually lost several aircraft in Iraq due to missiles.

Pete Zaitcev

Precisely....thank some metaphysical entity...

I have it on good authority that both the US and Soviets recognized the long term threat of these devises and deliberately designed this in(short shelf-life)....it's a feature not a bug.

The one thing that always made me shake my head was the preosterous practice of the Sovies deployment of Strellas to A-Stan....in a campaign against an insurgency that was literally pedestrian.

I have seen an illiterate Muji nail a Frogfoot(jet fighter-bomber) with a Strella. Strellas were murder against helos.

Ivan responded by up-armouring the Hinds to the extent that their war-load and service life was minimal....