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1 [1] (November 19, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbbpz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: - .......... 10 gm 0 ILI Updated November 19, 2019 Air Force OA-X Light Attack Aircraft Program On October 24, 2019, the U.S. Air Force issued a final request for proposals declaring its intent to acquire a new type of aircraft. The OA-X light attack aircraft is a small, two-seat turboprop airplane designed for operation in relatively permissive environments. The announcement of a formal program follows a series of Air Force experiments to determine the utility of such an aircraft. Why Light Attack? In a number of venues during 2018, then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson expressed the purpose of a new light attack aircraft as giving the Air Force an ability to free up more sophisticated and expensive assets for other tasks, citing the example of using high-end F-22 jets to destroy a drug laboratory in Afghanistan as an inefficient use of resources. Per-hour operating costs for light attack aircraft are typically about 2%-4% those of advanced fighters. She and other officials have also noted that the 2018 National Defense Strategy put a greater emphasis on potential conflicts against capably armed nation-states, further stressing a need to minimize the use of high-end assets in other types of conflict. (For more on that document, see CRS Insight IN 10855, The 2018 National Defense Strategy, by Kathleen J. McInnis.) Conversely, Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had criticized the Air Force as focusing excessively on the kind of high-end, near-peer conflicts in that strategy; the light attack aircraft can be seen as making the Air Force more relevant to low-end and counterinsurgency warfare. Histoy In January, 2016, LtGen James Holmes (then Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and Requirements) indicated to CRS that the Air Force was considering starting two programs related to ground-attack operations. One, called OA-X, would examine existing, off-the-shelf' light attack aircraft to add a low-end capability for use in relatively permissive air environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The other, dubbed AX-2, would develop an eventual replacement for the existing A- 10 Thunderbolt II. The Air Force subsequently publicized these concepts, although they were not included in the fiscal 2017 budget submission. On July 31, 2017, the Air Force began what it called the Capability Assessment of Non-Developmental Light Attack Platforms, an experiment to determine the utility of an OA-X, its ability to operate with coalition partners, and to initially evaluate candidate aircraft. The first phase included four aircraft: the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29; Textron/Beechcraft AT-6B; Air Tractor/L3 OA-802 turboprops, variants of which are in service with other countries; and the developmental Textron Scorpion jet. First-phase operations continued through August 2017. Figure I. Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Source: U.S. Department of Defense. Note: Shown in Afghan service. Figure 2. Textron/Beechcraft AT-6 Source: U.S. Air Force photo by Ethan D. Wagner. Figure 3. Air Tractor/L3 OA-802 Source: L-3.