Americas latest hi-tech combat aircraft to take the war to ISIS
 

Is........ The mighty Bronco

America?s Antique Planes Battling ISIS

now where did we put those Wessex?

It makes sense, I wonder if it will lead to orders of aircraft such as the Cessna Scorpion.

Another half-measure, now over. Not a bad idea, mind you, but even good ideas don't avail much in the face of unserious application.

antique planes revived
 

How about building some new DH Hornets ( Eric Winkle's favourite propeller aircraft : a development of the WW2 Mosquito). Fast, cheap and, being made from wood, a low radar signature.

Depending on what UAV's you have available, some of them can do what a Bronco does. That said, I like it. Not every target needs a silver bullet.

Bare Decks?
 

Perhaps a solution for anyone with F-35-delay issues.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...2%29_1987.JPEG

(Larger version here.)

An interesting decision to use old Broncos, as I recall a Jordanian F16 was shot down by ISIS a few years ago, the pilot was then murdered. What extra did the Bronco bringing to the party that a drone could not?

Am I missing something? The picture of the Bronco (very nice) is captioned "Four Broncos in a diamond formation". Either they're stacked one above another (very tight diamond) or it's "same way, same day"

Well the Bronco could carry pax Phillip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_...l_OV-10_Bronco

Always surprised me it could carry 5? paratroopers.

I suppose my real point is why would anyone want to go over Iraq or Syria in a Bronco, even if they are paratroops, when they know that if shot down they would be meeting their maker on You Tube quite quickly. Looking for 15 minutes of fame?

Not to make a conclusive military judgment, but the OV-10 has a good bit of history (US Marines and USAF) operating in places where they would attract ground fire from folks who truly knew how to dish it out. Fast-movers were also known to be vulnerable to anti-aircraft weapons in the same places. So it's not necessarily a bad idea to try the OV-10 out in Syria and see if it can materially contribute to the effort.

The old ideas are often the best...
 

Nutloose (your #1),

(My #7334, 22 Aug 2015, in "Pilot's Brevet...")
(Relevant to the matter under discussion ?)

Danny.

It's been shown that the same fate awaits FJ's as well.

and which do we think will be easier to shoot down - an F-16 doing 500kts at 10,000ft with the ability to be doing 1,000kts at 20,000ft 30 seconds later should the hot stuff start coming a bit close, or a Bronco doing 200kts at 10,000ft with the ability to be doing 210 kts at 10,100ft 30 seconds later if the hot stuff starts coming a bit close?

IS have scored one in the umpteen thousand goes they had at fast jets, if we give them umpteen thousand opportunities to fire at an OV-10, how many do you think they'll get?

I would have thought a lot will depend on which is chucking out the greater heat signature...

The Bronco can still fly faster than an Apache or a Cobra, I notice, and if Tony de Bruin's ex-German OV-10 is anything to go by, it can certainly be thrown around the sky in a pleasingly agile fashion.

Now there's a thought for the AAC's Apache replacement: new Broncos fitted out with the appropriate avionics and weapons and with the gun turret once trialled on it. The higher echelons of the RAF would have a fit.

Missile launch warning detectors + flares (the OV-10G+ appears to have both, from publicly available photos) have proven quite effective against MANPADS. Turboprop exhausts at the edge of the missile's envelope (10,000-15,000 ft slant range) are not a huge target.

Other differences since the last time anyone used an OV-10 in combat include much better EO/IR sensors and digital map displays, which do a lot for SA at altitudes above the golden-BB (and even medium-cal AAA) range.

It also has two crew, both with a good view and the Mk 1 eyeball's wide-angle coverage, rather than being confined to the soda-straw EO picture, and it doesn't rely on a satellite link.

Next thing you know, they'll be resurrecting the A-1 Skyraider.

Wasn't there a desire to deploy them to Afghanistan in some quarters several years ago? And didn't this desire result in trials of a Super Tucano for a similar COIN role.

I even vaguely remember day dreams of RAF Tucanos being armed for Afganistan duties, although nothing came of that.

Kind of hard to take that seriously.