In November, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan had a low-tech problem: They wanted to drop a very small bomb on a Taliban drug lab.
And they had only a high-tech, and therefore very expensive, solution: Dispatch a stealthy F-22 Raptor from more than 1,000 miles away.
“We looked to match the best aircraft with the most precise weapon against the target that was required, and in this case, that was the F-22 with the small-diameter bomb,” explained Brig. Gen. Lance Bunch at a Pentagon briefing the next month. “It has to do with where we have the weapons and munitions in the theater, what assets have them available, and what we can call on in the time frame that we need it.”
The U.S., it turned out, had no better option than to use a $140 million aircraft, its most advanced stealthy fighter, operating at an estimated cost of $70,000 per hour, to drop a single 250-pound bomb on a stationary target, where there was no threat from air defenses.
The video shown at a Pentagon briefing the next day showed the tactic was effective, just not cost-effective.
“We should not be using an F-22 to destroy a narcotics factory in Afghanistan,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson admitted at an conference in February.
The embarrassing overkill is the impetus behind an experiment going on in the skies over Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., where pilots are showing what a new generation of lower-tech aviation technology can do.
There are two turbo-prop planes that are vying to fill the need for a cheaper, more versatile plane to perform routine missions in a permissive air environment, such as air interdiction, close-air support, armed overwatch, and combat search and rescue.
There’s the A-29 Super Tucano, which is being used in combat by the fledgling Afghanistan Air Force and is built in Jacksonville, Fla., by a joint venture between Sierra Nevada Corporation and Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer.
And there’s the Beechcraft AT-6B Wolverine, a modified trainer built by Textron Aviation.
It’s not a competition yet. That will come when the Air Force puts out a request for proposal for a contract that is expected to be worth more that $2.4 billion.
The Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday voted to include $350 million to buy long-lead material for light attack aircraft.
But for now what the Air Force calls the “Light Attack Experiment,” is all about showing what is reasonable to expect from a smaller, slower planes, which could eventually play a vital role in close-air support for troops on the ground.
In his 2017 white paper, “Restoring American Power,” Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., recommended a fleet of 300 light attack planes.
“These aircraft could conduct counterterrorism operations, perform close-air support and other missions in permissive environments, and help to season pilots to mitigate the Air Force’s fighter pilot shortfall,” McCain wrote. “The Air Force could procure the first 200 of these aircraft by Fiscal Year 2022.”
Until then, if U.S. commanders had to destroy a Taliban drug lab today with precision weapons, it might call on the Afghan Air Force.
On March 22, Operation Resolute Support reported that Afghan A-29s attacked a Taliban compound in Farah with a GBU-58 laser-guided bomb, marking the first time Afghan pilots dropped a laser-guided bomb in combat.
The U.S. F-22s remained safely at their remote base in the region.
