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Originally posted by cas:
No wonder, it crashed into that stop sign.

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Originally posted by 92fstech:
It hurts me a little to see an Air Tractor called a Skyraider.

Glad they got it down safely, though.

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Originally posted by arabiancowboy:
. . . [snip] . . .
It was supposed to be operational already, but they've had a lot of issues and they still can't even shoot or fly IMC. It is NOT ready to replace the U-28 in combat and major teething issues are hampering the entire effort.

this is the second crash (first one resulted in minimal damage and no injuries) and I predict there will be more.

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Air Force Skyraider IIs are starting to be seen more commonly in certain areas as active-duty Air Force and Oklahoma Air National Guard personnel push ahead with getting the aircraft into operational service. Prime integrator L3Harris delivered the first fully missionized OA-1K, which is a heavily modified version of the Air Tractor AT-802 crop duster, earlier this year. The Skyraider II fleet is eventually expected to grow to 75 aircraft.

“As you are aware, the Skyraider II will be used for close air support, precision strike, and armed ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance],” an AFSOC spokesperson told TWZ. “As such, the sight has been included in the OA-1K design since inception and installed on every OA-1K.”

“The EOTech holographic sight is used before flight to align [the] pilots [sic] helmet mounting cueing system to the aircraft position,” they added.

OA-1K pilots reportedly use Thales’ popular Scorpion helmet-mounted display, which has already been integrated on a number of other tactical aircraft in U.S. service. The system puts datalink and sensor data, including positions of friendly and enemy forces, and more, along with flight data, right in front of their eyes.

In modern tactical combat aircraft where members of the crew wear helmet-mounted displays, the preflight alignment process can involve calibrating positioning via the aircraft’s built-in heads-up display (HUD). However, the two-seat OA-1K’s tandem cockpit, though full of digital displays, has no HUD.

Especially in the absence of a fixed HUD, there is also the possibility that the EOTech optic might also provide an emergency back-up option for aiming weapons. However, this would only be doable when employing gun pods or other munitions in an unguided mode, and its placement is far from ideal for that role.

“Well it does shoot things,” the official Air Tractor AT-802U account on X wrote yesterday in response to @GansoConABomba’s post. AT-802U is Air Tractor’s in-house designation for the special mission version of the AT-802 that serves as the basis for the OA-1K.

It is interesting to note that this isn’t the first time a standard, off-the-shelf EOTech XPS-series sight has appeared in the cockpit of an AFSOC aircraft. Back in 2018, TWZ noticed that these optics were in use on now-retired AC-130W Stinger II gunships, mounted on the left side of the cockpit, next to the pilot.

The exact function the EOTechs played on the AC-130W is unclear. It is possible the reason was, in part, similar to why the sights are now found on the OA-1Ks. Older model AC-130s had traditional HUDs in this position in the cockpit, but the Stinger II did not. TWZ has separately reported on how AC-130W pilots also used Scorpion helmet-mounted displays, and they would have similarly needed to align them before flight.

AC-130W pilots could also have used the EOTechs in the same role as the HUD on earlier AC-130s, to help line up the aircraft against targets on the ground during pylon turn attack runs using the guns firing out of the left side of the fuselage. As we noted in our report back in 2018, the pilots of the Air Force’s very first fixed-wing gunships, the Vietnam War-era AC-47s, used World War II-era reflector gunsights mounted in a window on the left side of the cockpit to aim at targets on the ground.

As another interesting aside, for many years, Air Force F-15 squadrons mounted scopes designed for hunting rifles in the cockpits below their windscreens to provide a ‘poor man’s’ long-range visual identification capability.

In a way, the EOTech sight on the OA-1K also evokes the aircraft’s namesake, the Korean and Vietnam War-era Douglas Skyraider. Development of the piston-engined Skyraider began at the tail-end of World War II, and they were fitted with a reflector gun sight as was the standard for tactical aircraft at the time. AFSOC’s new Skyraider IIs already have the distinction of being the first tail-dragging tactical combat aircraft anywhere in U.S. military service in decades.

We now know the OA-1Ks all have lowly rifle sights in their cockpits, albeit primarily to help cue up much more modern helmet-mounted displays.