“I am excited about the Skyraider II. I think we have a capability that’s only ours, and we are going to have the ability to shape that into something that the rest of the nation might not even know they need right now,” Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, who leads AFSOC, said in officially announcing the OA-1K’s moniker Thursday at the Special Air Warfare Symposium in Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
Air Force Special Operations Command has sought a new armed overwatch aircraft since at least 2017, ultimately choosing in 2022 the single-engine, turboprop aircraft manufactured by L3 Harris and Air Tractor to perform that mission. The Skyraider II is based on Air Tractor’s AT-802U Sky Warden, a heavily modified crop dusting-style plane that can be outfitted to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations. It also can carry 500-pound to 1,000-pound bombs and guns from .50-caliber machine guns to 20mm cannons.
L3 Harris and Air Tractor delivered the first of their aircraft to the Air Force in the summer to begin testing. The command expects to accept the first finalized version of the OA-1K into its fleet at Hurlburt Field, Fla., in the spring, officials said Thursday.
Air Force Special Operations Command initially sought 75 OA-1Ks in its $3 billion contact with L3 Harris and Air Tractor but slimmed its purchase plan last year to 62 amid budget constraints, officials said at the time.
The program has also faced scrutiny from the Government Accountability Office, which questioned whether the program made sense as the Pentagon shifts its fighting focus from years of counterterrorism operations in environments where it controlled the air space such as in Afghanistan and Iraq toward full-spectrum combat against peers with similar air war capabilities to the United States, such as Russia or China.
The watchdog in 2023 and 2024 reports urged the Pentagon to reevaluate the number of OA-1Ks it needed, limit the purchases to testing aircraft for now, and study the risks and challenges special operators could face when supported by the planes.
But Air Force Special Operations Command officials have fully backed the program, saying the aircraft would be especially useful in supporting troops in austere environments where they faced primarily ground-based threats and not an enemy air force — including in Africa and the Middle East.
“AFSOC has enduring global missions,” Brig. Gen. Craig Prather, AFSOC’s strategic plans, programs and requirements director, said Thursday. “While we don’t expect the Skyraider II to go mix it up with [advanced] fighters, it will provide value to our supported forces globally.”
Officials expect it will be able to replace two aging Air Force Special Operations Command aircraft — the U-28 Draco and MC-12 manned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance planes, which are expected to be retired by the end of the decade.
Prather said the Skyraider II could be useful in supporting troops “on missions from the [U.S.] southwest border to Africa and create dilemmas to those we are in competition with,” including China.
Like the first Skyraider, the OA-1K is a small, agile aircraft with attack capabilities. Both Skyraiders feature a tailwheel — a small wheel under the aircraft’s tail — which give them “the capability for short takeoffs and landings as well as the ability to operate from unimproved or austere airfields,” according to the command.
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