Jane Edwards
Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, top acquisition official at the U.S. Air Force, has said the service will call off the remaining flights in its light-attack experiment following the death of a naval pilot in an aircraft crash on June 22, Defense News reported Tuesday.
The accident involved the A-29 Super Tucano aircraft from the Sierra Nevada–Embraer team.
Bunch said the service aims to release a request for proposals by December and will implement a “multi-pronged approach†that would look at logistics, manpower and potential basing options for a new light-attack aircraft.
He noted that the service collected flight test data from A-29 and Textron-built AT-6 Wolverine aircraft during the experiment’s initial phase and in the previous month.
The Air Force intends to wrap up the experiment by gathering additional sustainment and logistics data from contractors with plans to test a commercial off-the-shelf, exportable network aboard some surrogate planes.
“We believe that is easily doable where we can collect the data off those and it will be applicable for what we’re trying to do with the light attack and coming up with an exportable network,†Bunch added.
