About a month away from its arrival, the Air Force named an upcoming light attack and observation aircraft after an iconic Cold War-era close air support platform.
The OA-1K—from the Armed Overwatch program—will be called the Skyraider II, Air Force Special Operations Command officials said. The modified cropduster will provide airborne eyes, ears, and precision fires to support ground troops in permissive airspace, just as its namesake, the A-1 Skyraider, did in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
AFSOC officials announced the new name at the Special Air Warfare Symposium at Fort Walton Beach, Fla., on Feb. 27.
“I am excited about the Skyraider II,” AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said in a press release. “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.”
Produced by Air Tractor and modified by L3Harris, the Skyraider II is meant to be modular, capable of swapping out different sensors, communications equipment, and combat payloads, so that troops in austere locations can get the support they need at a fraction of the price and logistical footprint of more sophisticated platforms.
“AFSOC has enduring global missions,” the command’s director of strategic plans, programs, and requirements, Brig. Gen. Craig Prather, said in the press release. “While we don’t expect the Skyraider II to go mix it up with fifth- and sixth-generation fighters, it will provide value to our supported forces globally.”
The first production aircraft was supposed to be delivered in October 2023, but delays pushed it back and now the first operational aircraft is expected to arrive at Hurlburt Field in Florida the week of March 31, an AFSOC official told Air & Space Forces Magazine, though an experimental version of the aircraft made a brief appearance there in January.
Pilots have been familiarizing themselves with a pair of standard issue Air Tractor AT-802Us at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Okla., but those aircraft lack the modifications L3Harris is installing on the operational planes.
The Skyraider II comes at a time when special operations leaders across the military say they are stretched thin countering terrorism in the Middle East and maintaining partnerships in Europe and the Pacific to deter rivals such as Russia and China.
“Since 2019, demand for your Air Commandos has surged, in some cases even exceeding the peak levels seen during the Global War on Terror,” Conley told the House Armed Services’ Intelligence and Special Operations subcommittee at a Feb. 26 hearing.
“We commit almost 100 percent of our forces in each deployment cycle,” he added later in the hearing. “There’s no excess left. In order to do other things, it means trade-offs for what we’re currently tasked to do.”
But in the face of rising demand for special operations aviation, the budget has remained flat, Conley said. Nor can the aircraft depot and procurement system keep up with rapid changes in technology.
“My concern is that by the time we get a fleet of 50 aircraft of any flavor updated to where they need to be, the technology’s already irrelevant,” he said. “So it’s this constant loop of trying to catch up with the enemy threat. We largely overcome that by training our way out of it to the extent we can through developing of new tactics and procedures, but that’s only a small piece of what we really need as far as advanced modifications.”
Despite the high demand, U.S. Special Operations Command scaled back its planned buy of OA-1K aircraft from 75 copies down to 62 last March, a 17 percent drop “due to resource constraints,” the command said at the time.
About three months earlier, the Government Accountability Office published a report skeptical about the 75-fleet buy, but a SOCOM official said at the time that the report did not cause the command to trim its desired fleet size.
The Skyraider II has big shoes to fill: its namesake played a critical role guarding downed pilots during search and rescue missions in Vietnam.
“Whereas jet aircraft often had to leave the battle area for refueling, the A-1s provided nearly continuous suppressing fire until helicopters extracted downed Airmen,” wrote the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force about the Skyraider. One A-1 pilot, Maj. Bernard Fisher, received the Medal of Honor for landing under fire to pick up a downed pilot in 1966.
Another pilot, Col. William Jones III, received the same award after shepherding a flaming Skyraider back to base so he could relay the location of a downed aviator and an enemy gun position. Jones suffered severe burns from the fiery cockpit, but the downed pilot was rescued later that day.