{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "SOCCOM apparently buying 75 Air Tractors for ??? reasons to be clear, we\u2019re talking about this bad boy: described as \u201can...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/693543676606021632/", "html": "
lots of militaries apparently fly them, but mostly in firefighting and other noncombat roles. unless SOCCOM is planning to get into wildfire management, tho, I have got to wonder what exactly they are planning to do here
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Short take-off and landing from unpaved fields, built for terrain-following and low-altitude maneuvers, sturdy and can survive low-speed crashes, they\u2019ll be easily adapted as counterinsurgency attack planes for use in Third World theaters where the bad guys don\u2019t have anti-air capabilities.
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Of course the American understanding is that the Army has helicopters but attack planes are an Air Force thing (that supports Army operations so the regular brass doesn\u2019t care about), they\u2019ll go to AFSOC at Hurlbut. The Marines, in turn, will understand this as SOCOM muscling in on their expeditionary combined-arms turf.
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Oh, repairable in the sticks remote from maintenance centers, too, that\u2019s big
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Maybe they\u2019re training vehicles? like,\u00a0\u201cspecial forces guys need to know how to fly whatever dinky plane they find in the field to exfil with\u201d training?
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Naw, if they were collecting type ratings they\u2019d hook up with a military aviation contractor that has a wide collection in their hangar. They certainly wouldn\u2019t get 75 of them
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Oh, also, re: the Air Tractor thing they\u2019re already designed (wing spars strong enough for heavy loading, etc.) to mount external equipment or to carry things in internal bays with doors opening to suddenly release on target (and thus significantly change total weight suddenly), that\u2019s big too.
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Now this might just be political maneuvering with the Air Force grabbing a bigger chunk of the SOCOM pie and\u2026 wait a second, what are Space Force elites in SOCOM gonna be? Is there a Coast Guard unit running riverine gunboats or did they manage to freeze them out?
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The US armed forces have generally been pretty clear-eyed about climate change. These may well be for fire fighting purposes, for bases that are in areas of the world that are likely to be hit by increasing wildfires in the next twenty years.
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