Reflections and disputes in the defense departments of Russia and the United States regarding the replacement of the aging Su-25 and A-10A / C attack aircraft do not subside to this day. Initially, this issue was very closely puzzled by the American congressmen and the US Air Force command, who intended to pass a law banning the further allocation of funds for the operation and modernization of the "Warthogs" in order to increase allocations for more important programs related to the maintenance and updating of 5th generation F network-centric machines. -35A, F-16C tactical multipurpose fighters, Reaper attack unmanned aerial vehicles and other promising vehicles. Then a similar opinion was expressed by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Colonel-General Viktor Bondarev, who notified RIA Novosti about the future replacement of the Su-25 Grach attack aircraft and its modifications with high-precision front-line fighter-bombers Su-34.
But if the probable replacement of "Rooks" with "Fullbacks" looks even more or less justified, then the replacement of "Warthogs" with "Falcons" and "Lightnings" does not at all correspond to the methodology of using modern assault aircraft. For example, the Su-34 has both the features of a modern fighter-interceptor, anti-ship and anti-submarine aircraft, and the features of an attack aircraft. For this, the cockpit of two pilots is made in the form of a titanium armored capsule, which protects against damage from shell fragments and large-caliber machine-gun shells when flying in the terrain bend mode. Neither the F-16C Block 60 nor the F-35A possess such qualities: any attempt to dominate the enemy's armored vehicles at low altitude can result in defeat even from simple anti-aircraft artillery systems. The lack of cabin reservation in most cases will lead to the death of the crew. Moreover, subsonic A-10A / C with a straight wing have a significantly smaller turning radius at minimum speeds, which is very convenient for quick maneuvering and entering a firing trajectory in a small "active" section of the theater of operations. No tactical fighter in the US Air Force has this capability.
The US Air Force quickly realized this and the issue of writing off the "Warthogs" was excluded from the agenda. Nevertheless, after 2028, all A-10A / C attack aircraft will be removed from service with the Air Force, and completely different machines will have to occupy this niche. It is likely that promising attack aircraft will be unmanned, but during the transitional stage, manned vehicles will be required, one of which is now entering the stage of testing the weapons system.
According to information published on October 21, 2016 on the page of the analytical resource "Military Parity", the light attack aircraft "Scorpion" performed the first launches of air-to-ground missile weapons against ground targets. The tests used 70-mm NURS "Hydra-70", tactical anti-tank missiles AGM-114F "Hellfire", as well as light air-to-ground missiles APKWS ("Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System"), developed by "BAE Systems" … These missiles are the basis for the armament of the Apache attack helicopters, and if used on the Scorpion, the arsenals for helicopter and assault aircraft will be completely unified, which will allow the Apache to replenish the Scorpion's ammunition in combat conditions, and vice versa. But is the Scorpion light attack aircraft capable of completely replacing the heavy A-10A / C in functionality?
To begin with, the first prototype of a seemingly quite ordinary light attack training aircraft "Scorpion" went through most of the assembly stages in strict secrecy at the Cessna plant in Kansas from 2012 to 2013. Cessna Aircraft Company, together with Bell Helicopter, forms the backbone of the Textron AirLand conglomerate, which is the manufacturer of the new attack aircraft. Both companies have solid experience in the development and production of transport and attack helicopters and aircraft, and therefore the promising "Scorpion" received a very perfect pedigree.
The glider of the aircraft, designed according to the "high-wing" scheme, has a straight high-lying rectangular wing with a span of 14, 43 m and an area of about 27 m2. This provides a normal wing loading (with a mass of 9350) within 346 kg / m2, due to which a good angular turn rate is realized when performing combat maneuvers at low altitudes. The wing roots have small angular sagging, which maintains stable flight even at high angles of attack. Apparently, the direct wing of the "Scorpion" is a tribute to the American projects of combat training aircraft of the 60s - 70s: the design of the two-seat attack aircraft from the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly, which was in service with the Air Force, could be taken as a basis USA from 1967 to 1992. The rest of the structural elements have nothing to do with the "Dragonfly", and some of them generally belong to the 5th generation of tactical aviation.
The oval underwing air intakes are similar to the F / A-18C "Hornet"; their shape has nothing to do with the "stealth" concept, but the use of radio-absorbing materials and coatings in the execution of edges can improve the situation well. But a small effective reflective surface of the edges is provided only at large viewing angles of enemy radars relative to the roll of the "Scorpion". If the radiation of the radar or ground radar falls into the front projection of the attack aircraft, then the signal will be reflected from the compressor blades of the Honeywell TFE731 turbojet engines, since the air channel in the aircraft nacelles is straight and has no geometric displacements. This can be considered a serious disadvantage in terms of the attack aircraft's radar stealth.
The plus is the original design of the tail unit "Scorpion", where the vertical stabilizers have a "Stealth" 20-25-degree camber, providing maximum deflection of electromagnetic radiation. The cockpit canopy has a double cover, large area, and has excellent visibility in almost all hemispheres. But this also has some disadvantages. So, it is very vulnerable even to small-caliber small arms. The A-10A lantern, for example, has 3 binding stripes and a much smaller area, which gives additional protection when fired upon. To increase the strength of the lantern, a more complex and massive binding will be required.
The nose of the fuselage, in contrast to the "Thunderbolt", is pointed and conical, which, after modernization, can be represented by a radio-transparent fairing with the latest versions of airborne radar stations with AFAR and a synthetic aperture mode for searching, tracking and destroying ground and air targets. For the A-10A / C attack aircraft, a suspended container with a Westinghouse WX-50 radar was provided for this, but this product did not advance beyond the project. The basis of the weapons control system was the AN / AAS-35V "Pave Penny" optical-electronic sight, designed to capture targets illuminated by laser designators of ground and airborne targets. Also, TV / IKGSN tactical missiles AGM-65B / D "Maverick" perform the role of optoelectronic systems for detecting and capturing targets in the television and thermal imaging channels of sight. In difficult meteorological conditions, "Warthogs" have serious limitations in combat use without an overhead radar. Westinghouse WX-50 allowed attack aircraft to fly in the mode of following the terrain at altitudes of 150-200 m in rain and fog.
The main "feature" of the light attack aircraft "Scorpion" is its internal weapons compartment, which can accommodate up to 1400 kg of missile and bomb weapons. Provided that the attack aircraft receives an active phased array radar, any air-to-air missile or PRLR can be integrated into its ACS, which can be placed in the inner compartment. This detail tells us about the direct relationship of "Scorpions" to cars of the transitional and 5th generations. Another 2,800 kg of weapons can be placed on 6 external suspension points under the wings.
Many interesting technical solutions await customers in the design of important components of the Scorpion attack aircraft. Thus, the power plant, based on two Honeywell TF731 turbojet engines with a total thrust of 3600 kgf, has spaced engine nacelles, which sharply increases the survivability of the aircraft in a difficult combat situation. The engines themselves are a modification of the TFE731-5BR bypass turbojet engines installed on Hawker-850XP administrative aircraft; flap and aileron drives are borrowed from the line of light jet passenger business jets Cessna 560XL Citation Excel and Cessna Citation X, respectively. Thanks to the unification of the main control elements of the "Scorpion" with the civil aviation sector, the cost of a flight hour dropped sharply, which amounted to only about $ 3,000 against $ 12,000 for the A-10A attack aircraft. For the treasury, the car is much more profitable than the heavy "Warthog".
Initially, "Scorpion" was planned as a light attack aircraft for direct support of troops in local military conflicts, for patrolling sea and land borders, as well as to combat drug trafficking. But the installation of an airborne radar and the presence of a co-pilot-operator indicates a much wider range of tasks to be solved. To display information about the tactical situation, navigation data (including a digital theater map) and information about the state of systems and weapons of the attack aircraft, the pilot's dashboard has 2 wide-format MFIs of vertical orientation (in the center and right of the dashboard), an additional backup indicator is installed at the bottom left, displaying the attitude indicator; at the top left is a compact monochrome indicator, apparently to display information from the radio station, as well as devices that provide the exchange of tactical information with other units. A similar, duplicated information field also surrounds the co-pilot-operator, due to which all tasks for controlling the radar, optoelectronic systems, electronic warfare systems and weapons can be transferred from pilot to pilot in the course of a long air operation.
Most likely, the Scorpions will receive hardware and software for transmitting tactical data to AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters, as well as controlling unmanned attack drones of the MQ-9 Reaper type, which will make them work faster and more efficiently in theaters. … In addition to the airborne radar, the Scorpions are equipped with a ventral optoelectronic sighting system of the MX-15i True HD type in a spherical rotating turret.
The Mx-15i complex is presented:
- standard thermal imaging sensor (Thermal imager) with a resolution of 640х512 pixels with a cooled infrared matrix based on indium antimonide, optical zoom is about 50X;
- thermal imaging sensor of high resolution (High defenition thermal Imager) with a similar cooled matrix, but with a resolution of 1280x1024 pixels, 30-fold optical approximation allows in normal meteorological conditions to classify and identify a "frigate" target at a distance of 50 km;
- color TV viewfinder with increased light sensitivity (Color low-light continuous zoom) with HD and FullHD resolutions;
- standard daylight TV HD / FullHD-viewfinder (Daylight step-zoom spotter);
- laser rangefinder (LRF) with a range of 20 km and an accuracy of +/- 5 m;
- laser designator with a wavelength of 860nm and a power of 350 to 750mW.
The height of the turret module is about 48 cm with a mounting platform, and its diameter is about 39 cm, its weight with additional control equipment and mechanical rotation drives is 42.7 kg. The MX-15i "True HD" has synchronization buses with MIL-STD-461/810 LMS. This complex fully meets the requirements of a promising attack aircraft of the XXI century.
The integration of the Hellfire family of missiles speaks of another important advantage of the Scorpion light attack aircraft: the range of guided missiles for this aircraft will include multipurpose JAGM missiles with a range of up to 28 km. The work on the product was carried out by the consortia "Raytheon-Boeing" and "Lockheed Martin", while only the latter was able to achieve real breakthrough results. Lockheed's JAGM destroyed a truck moving at a speed of 35 km / h at a distance of about 8.5 km at the Daguey training ground. Excellent ability to destroy moving targets is realized thanks to the 3-channel homing head, which combines infrared, semi-active laser and active radar homing channels. Thus, an active millimeter-wave radar homing channel (similar to that used on the related missile MBDA "Brimstone") completely eliminates a miss if an enemy ground unit uses an optical-electronic countermeasures complex or sets up a smoke screen. Semi-active laser and infrared channels, on the other hand, minimize the error of hitting a target that is conducting electronic warfare. The low launch weight (48, 9 kg) and the length of 1, 8 m, even allow the suspension points of the light "Scorpion" to take an arsenal of more than 10-12 JAGM missiles deployed on modernized BRU-33 launchers.
A decent disadvantage is the lack of a powerful rapid-firing aircraft cannon of the GAU-8 / A type, which with its 30-mm PGU-14 / B armor-piercing shells is capable of breaking through the armor plates of the upper projection of almost any modern main battle tank. However, this attack aircraft is not intended to be equipped with such powerful cannon installations, since their mass, together with ammunition and projectile delivery system, often exceeds 1,500 kg, and this is already more than half of the very "scarce" combat load. At the same time, let's not forget that even in the conditions of network-centric wars of the 21st century - a century where hypersonic missile weapons will break out far ahead in comparison with most standard supersonic airborne weapons, aircraft cannons will continue to play a serious role in shock combat operations, since any modern ATGM is very It is easy to intercept with promising active protection systems (KAZ), or military air defense systems, which in no way applies to simple armor-piercing shells with EPR in ten thousandths of a square meter. Aircraft cannons for "Scorpion" can be made in the form of suspended containers such as SUU-23A, etc.
Now let's consider the main tactical and technical characteristics of the "Scorpion" attack aircraft. The maximum speed of the prototype of the promising light attack aircraft is about 830 km / h, which does not distinguish it from the heavy A-10A / C. The service ceiling is 300-500 m higher than the Thunderbolt and is 14 km; combat range with full suspensions is about 900 - 1200 km, which is about 2 times more than that of the A-10A / C. The thrust-to-weight ratio at the maximum take-off weight is the same for these machines, and is approximately 0.36.
At the same time, the average and maximum combat loads of the "Warthog", amounting to 5, 4 and 7, 3 tons, respectively, are equivalent to the empty and normal takeoff masses of the "Scorpion", which gives significant advantages in the mass of weapons dropped on heads, equipment and infrastructure. enemy. Reservation of the A-10A / C cabin is also many times stronger than that of the "Scorpion". But the basis of the foundations of the all-weather heavy attack aircraft "Thunderbolt" - the container radar WX-50 gathers dust in the form of single forgotten prototypes and technical documentation in the departments of the former "Fairchaild Aircraft" (now part of "Elbit Systems") and use it in the remaining 10 years of operation of the attack aircraft nobody plans. This means that the A-10C, after receiving the initial combat readiness of the first serial "Scorpions" with an airborne radar, will lose its current relevance.
New missile and bomb weapons, as well as network-centric equipment, will fundamentally reformat the tactics of actions of promising ground attack aircraft. Pilots of light assault "Scorpions" will not have to approach enemy ground troops armed with air defense systems: an attack on tank platoons and brigades will occur from a distance of 25 km (if JAGM is used). As we know, the only military ZRAK capable of firing missile fire at an air threat at a distance of up to 40 km on the move is the Pantsir-SM being developed today, only this combat unit can not allow the Scorpion to approach the firing lines of launching tactical missiles of the JAGM type, other anti-aircraft missile systems will have to destroy only missiles fired at defended objects. The combination of unique qualities of the Scorpion light attack aircraft, along with the ability to equip them with an air refueling system, will put them in a dominant position among modern manned aviation systems for direct support of troops.
