U.S. Special Operations Command has awarded a total of $19.2 million to five companies for prototype demonstrations as part of the Armed Overwatch effort to buy a low-cost aircraft to fly surveillance and strikes in austere locations. The aircraft selected to proceed are: Leidos Inc.’s ...
Sierra Nevada Corp. and Embraer Defense & Security on March 29 unveiled the latest A-29 Super Tucano headed to Air Force Special Operations Command, painted in a unique livery referencing the early lineage of air special operations. The A-29 is painted in the color scheme ...
Lawmakers want to quash the prospect of buying new armed overwatch planes for special operations troops or the Air Force in the next few years, as part of the final draft of the 2021 defense policy bill released this month. They seek to block SOCOM ...
Congress wants to pump the brakes on U.S. Special Operations Command’s effort to buy a new plane for armed overwatch in remote areas, after many lawmakers recently supported a similar Air Force program. Lawmakers call on Pentagon leadership to describe why SOCOM would need such ...
Multiple companies who faced off in the Air Force’s light attack experiment will again compete for a similar contract from U.S. Special Operations Command. Textron Aviation, Air Tractor, and Leidos are offering aircraft for a three-phase armed overwatch competition that ends with live-fly demonstrations in ...
The Air Force is moving ahead with contracts for both finalists involved in its exploration of light-attack aircraft, issuing awards to both Textron’s AT-6 and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s A-29 over the past few weeks. Formal funding is the latest step in the Air Force’s light-attack ...
The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer and several aerospace corporations have pulled out of the Singapore Air Show as concerns about the new coronavirus spread, though U.S. Air Force demonstration teams, airmen, and other aircraft will still attend. Multiple companies, including Gulfstream and Textron Aviation from ...
US Special Operations Command is moving forward with its armed overwatch plan, independent of the Air Force’s light attack experiment, inviting industry for a briefing in March on a proposal to buy an estimated 75 aircraft. The aircraft would “provide Special Operations Forces deployable and ...
Air Tractor is again protesting the Air Force’s effort to buy light attack aircraft, this time pushing back against the service’s decision to purchase a small number of Textron Aviation’s AT-6 Wolverine for work with a prototype radio system. “At issue is the sole-source nature ...
Air Force Special Operations Command plans to use its small buy of A-29 Super Tucano aircraft, under the service’s light attack experiment, to bolster its air advisers’ ability to train and, in the long term, improve the armed overwatch capability it can provide to other ...