February 10, 2013 at 4:53 pm
As the price of aircraft goes up and with the pace and different types of operations that are undertaken is there scope for a low cost sub sonic attack aircraft designed to use parts already in use. And have the sort of specification as
Single seat
700 Knots top speed
16200 lbs EJ2x0 non afterburning engine
Hawk T2 cockpit layout and seat
Integrated weapons targeting pod and laser ranger
700 nm hi-lo-hi range on internal fuel
Internal canon
A wing with 6 hard points and wingtip rails
Able to carry storm shadow on the centre line hard point or a large external fuel tank
Able carry 8000 lb load to include 12 Brimstone missiles or guided weapons and free fall weapons
And cost around £20 million
What do you think and what parts and speck would you go for as at this time most operations have no real air to air threat but a need for air support i.e Afghan- Mali – Libya