Singha wrote:well a super tucano type would have a rough time against the manpad/radar guided aa gun threat, not to speak of roving helicopters with aams. and their payload would be too limited...a helicopter gunship would do better things and mount more sensors.
Singha sir, for CAS support even a helicopter gunship would be threated by manpad/radar guided aa guns. If short range rockets are used for hitting the target in ground, then the helicopter as well as the fighter would be with in 500-1200 m of the target, hence pretty vulnerable to attack from ground. Also for the case of attack using ATGM's on flat plains, only standoff distance would provide the protection from ground based AA systems as well as Manpads. Of course helicopter do have the capability of popping up from behind hills, tree lines and launch standoff atgms. Thats definitely there forte. However for CAS such popping up may not provide enough time for proper distinguising between friendly and enemy forces. It would be better to be much nearer to the fight, maybe higher but definitely nearer.
A prop plane would definitely have better altitude to stay away from manpads as well have speed to provide a much smaller launch window. Please note I am not saying that armed helicopters are waste. Armed helicopter is better suited to hit enemy armor, before actual contact. Once contact is made, in the fog of war, air assets would have to need closer to differentiate between enemy and friends, hence the extra speed of a turbo prop.
Such aircrafts would provide good rough field capability, more loiter time, greater altitude for standoff attack, better speed for low level attack, dive capability for attack and better speed for transit. Such aircrafts, I believe feel out of the airforce's radar across the world because of not being glamourous enough and fast enough in a jet age.
I have seen countless video's of hurricanes, spitfires, stuka's, Me109 taking off from flat fields and plains. what that means that such aircrafts do not need special concrete runways, thus are invulnerable from run way damage. Such a thing is what's required for an airfield ( quite literally) which is acting as a forward base for CAS support. Even if the field is hit, all we need to do is a find another flat piece of land.
Something which can take off from rough fields. Carries a 20mm gun, two rocket pods and 4-6 small bombs or helina. Good loiter time, stol. Well we already have something that can be a base for making such a aircraft. The Rustom-1 UAV is based on the Rutan Long-EZ. Long-EZ has a range of over 3000 km, ( more than 14 hour flights have been demonstrated), 8000m cieling and speed of 290 kmph. It has a max take off weight of 600kg. Beef up the design. Increase speed to 400-500km. Range maybe reduced to 1000-1200 km, loiter to 1-3hr. Increase max takeoff weight. Let it carry a weapons load of 800-1200kg. Before any one jumps around, please note that Rustom-1 has a take off weight of 1800 kg, which is 3 times that of Long-EZ. So use the same design and beef it up further to a max take of weight of 2000-2500 kg.