The Scorpion is a tandem-seat twinjet aircraft with an all-composite material fuselage designed for light attack and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. Production costs were minimized by using common commercial off the shelf technology, manufacturing resources and components developed for Cessna’s business jets; such as the flap drive mechanism is from the Cessna Citation XLS and Cessna Citation Mustang, the aileron drive mechanism is from the Citation X.[3][6][7][8][25] Textron AirLand calls the Scorpion an ISR/strike aircraft, instead of a “light attack” aircraft. The joint venture also states the Scorpion is intended to handle “non-traditional ISR” flights such as those performed by U.S. fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Scorpion is designed to cheaply perform armed reconnaissance using sensors to cruise above 15,000 ft, higher than most ground fire can reach, and still be rugged enough to sustain minimal damage.[26]

The Scorpion is designed to be affordable, costing US$3,000 per flight hour, with a unit cost expected to be below US$20 million.[22]

Vs F-16 “more recent variants starting at $25 to $30 million but potentially reaching $60 to $70 million with improvements.” and $22,000 per hour.

Vid of it https://youtu.be/q7qwQGksyPk

They hope it will replace the A-10.

  • @orrk
    link
    English
    14 months ago

    that’s the best part, the brrrt never really worked well.

    what boggles the mind is why people think cheap is good when it’s about war, when we have seen time and time again that cheap and simple gets dominated by advanced but more expensive.