 |
| Conceptual view of an Iraqi Air Force Hawker Beechcraft AT-6B Texan II loaded with rocket pods and LGBs © HBC |
|
|
 |
| Not very different, the Pilatus PC-9M can also be used both as a trainer and as a light attack aircraft © Pilatus |
|
| Iraq soon to have
its own air arm again
By Jean-Michel Guhl
in Geneva, Switzerland
With a low-keyed planned withdrawal of US armed forces from Iraq before 2010 and with a first move to commence next year, the Iraqi military will have to take over gradually many low level aerial missions which until now are the sole responsability of the US and British aviation.
Last April, the US Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) at Wright--Patterson AFB, Ohio,made it public that it had received a request from the renascent Iraqi Air Force to buy at least eight single-engined turboprop counter-insurgency (COIN) aircraft capable of fulfilling as well advanced training tasks. The selected suitable airplane should be delivered from November 2008 through April 2009, with options to buy additional aircraft in annual batches of six for a total of 36 machines. The ‘commercial request’ requires a sturdy single-engine turboprop powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 class engine of the most current model with an advanced suite of sensors and weapons including electro-optical sensors and laser or IR guided weapons capability.
Four likely candidates which are almost similar in external appearance are in the competition : the US firm Hawker Beechcraft with the AT-6B Texan II, Pilatus from Switzerland with the PC-9M, KAI from South Korea with the KO-1 and Embraer from Brazil with the Super Tucano. Although interesting also for its performances, the newer PC-21 was not retained because of supplementary costs needed in weaponizing the airframe.
Hawker Beechcraft’s AT-6B Texan II is a project the Kansan firm exhibited for the first time during last year's Farnborough air show just before Raytheon’s aviation assets were purchased by Onex Corp. and Goldman Sachs to form HBC. A Raytheon Aircraft product evolved from a largely modified Pilatus PC-9 airframe —with no relations at all with the vintage North American T-6 Texan of WW II — the present T-6 serves today as the USAF/USN Joint Primary Air Training System (J-PATS) in North America. Used to screen young US military pilots the T-6, in ‘A’ version, is also used by NATO in Canada and by Greece’s Elleniki Polemiki Aeroporia in its ‘B’ variant. The Hellenic Air Force actually replaced its old North American T-2C Buckeyes with a beefed up variant of the T-6A designated T-6Bs which is capable of carrying external stores under the wings. Although the T-6 was not originally conceived as a weapon trainer, it is being weaponized today as the AT-6B to respond to the Iraqi solicitation.
Jim Schuster, the new CEO of Hawker Beechcraft (and previously with Raytheon Defense), told the author of this story in Geneva that the AT-6B is basically a weaponized T-6B trainer with kevlar armor and additional equipment requested by the customer, namely a self-protection suite capable of dealing with SAM (man portable missiles) threats. Thanks to the T-6's open architecture design, Jim Schuster thinks that the Beechcraft entry offers today a versatile solution that is actually capable of meeting multiple mission requirements in Iraq.
|
 |
| Purely an advanced trainer, the PC-21 was discarded because of costs involved in 'weaponization' of the aircraft © Pilatus |
|
|
 |
| Yet another look alike but less likely entry in the Iraqi AF competition could be the Korean KO-1 armed trainer produced by KAI for the RKAF © KAI |
|
|
 |
| One of the USAF Hawker Beechcraft (formerly Raytheon) T-6A Texan II used for primary air training at Randolph AFB, Texas. The aircraft was initially a purely US development of the Pilatus PC--9, which explains why the Raytheon entry and the Pilatus have such a strong ressemblance © USAF |
|
|
|
| Although not likely to be retained, because of the close control
exerted by the US government on its Iraqi counterpart, the three other
contenders are the following:
• The PC-9M from the Swiss firm
Pilatus represent somehow the ideal turboprop trainer of today. The
design has been licensed by other firms and Pilatus has to this day
sold this airplane to some 15 countries (indeed including 20 aircraft
sold to Iraq in 1987 and which are today flown by the air branch of the
Iranian Pasdaran – the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards – after
they fled from Iraq to avoid US strikes during the first Gulf war of
1991.
• Other rather exotic entry is Korea Aerospace Industry’s
KO-1 Woong Bee which is the armed forward air control (FAC) & light
attack version of the home-produced KT-1 training aircraft. The KT-1
project began in 1988, and the first aircraft was delivered to the
RoKAF at the turn of the millenium.
• Last but by no means as
good, the A-29 Super Tucano from Embraer is used nowadays in a fully
armed role by by three squadrons of the Força Aérea Brasileira, mostly
as a patrol and border watch aircraft in the Amazon and Pantanal
regions, and by the Fuerza Aérea Colombiana since last winter in the
day/night anti-drug patrol. The Super Tucano is a distant derivative of
the older and popular EMB-312 Tucano trainer that has been bought by 17
countries and due to be used by at least four more African countries
when the French Air Force give away their Tucanos next year. Having
almost no commonality with its Tucano ancester, the Super Tucano is
regarded more as a true light combat aircraft than as a pure ‘dual’.
Indeed it is the only aircraft of its kind, with the older Argentinian
IA-58 Pucará, to have built-in guns. A positive feature as it saves two
underwing pylons for more rockets or bombs.
On the Iraqi theater
the selected airplane is not intended for heavy combat, but for air
police and counter insurgency tasks, with an ancillary rôle as a
training aircraft. Fitted with fully integrated sensors the selected
aircraft is also to receive in due course a suitable tactical data link
system and related avionics to serve as an ISR platform within a basic
NCW network. At such, it could provide or receive data and intelligence
information for/from other aircraft and ground-based platforms in the
most modern fashion. [Geneva - 05-22-2007]
 |
|
|
 |
| Armed with wing-built 0.5 mm machine-guns, a Brazilan AF A-29A. This version of the Embraer Super Tucano is a single-seat light attack aircraft dedicated for the COIN mission © J.-M. Guhl |
|
|
|