Air Tractor’s AT-802U multi-mission aircraft

UPDATED TO INCLUDE AIR TRACTOR’S COMMENTS

WASHINGTON: Just as the Air Force’s long-delayed Light Attack Aircraft buy seemed to be actually moving forward, Texas-based Air Tractor has smacked the program with a protest — apparently in hopes of getting another chance for its militarized version of its AT-802 crop duster.

Gen. Arnold Bunch, head of Air Force Materiel Command, told reporters today that Air Tractor has re-entered a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the Air Force’s requests for proposal (RFP) to Textron Aviation for the AT-6 — although a previous protest to the RFP for the Sierra Nevada Corporation/Embraer Defense & Security for the A-29 was rescinded.

According to the GAO website, the new Air Tractor protest was filed on Nov. 1.

As Breaking D readers are well aware, after a decade of dithering the Air Force announced late last month that it intends to buy two or three each of the AT-6 and A-29 (based on price) to continue experimentation with the aircraft. According to the RFP, the award is expected by the end of the year for the A-29 and in early 2020 for the AT-6.

Air Combat Command will use the AT-6 Wolverine planes at Nellis AFB in Nevada to test operational tactics and tactical network standards to improve interoperability with international partners.

Air Force Special Operations Command will take delivery of the A-29 Super Tucanos at Hurlburt Field in Florida to “develop an instructor pilot program for the Combat Aviation Advisory mission, to meet increased partner nation requests for light attack assistance,” according to the RFP.

Air Tractor had offered, with partner L3, the AT-802L Longsword back in 2017 during Phase 1 of the Light Attack Aircraft experiment, but lost out to the AT-6 and the A-29.

Air Tractor’s website currently features four AT-802 variants, but none of them are the AT-802L. Instead, the plane being touted for light attack is a the multi-mission AT-802U, which the firm says can also undertake strike missions enabled by intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) capabilities, signals intelligence, border/maritime patrol and remote supply/transport.

UPDATE BEGINS. An Air Tractor representative explained this evening that the AT-802U designation was for a basic aircraft without any embedded mission systems.” UPDATE ENDS.

As reported by colleague Rachel Cohen in August, the company’s original protest was filed on June 6 only to be dismissed by GAO on June 28.

UPDATE BEGINS. Air Tractor told Breaking D that that the June bid protest was limited to the Air Force’s plans to buy the A-29, under what is essentially a sole source contract. The goal of the protest, which the company knew it could not win, was to remind the service that Air Tractor’s AT-802 is actually already being used by Air Force Special Operations Command for training. Further, the rep noted, three partner countries — Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates — have purchased the airplane. According to the company rep, it was Air Tractor that withdrew the protest.

The current protest is aimed at the planned AT-6 buy. Air Tractor provided Breaking D with the following statement via email:

Air Tractor, Inc. has submitted a protest to the GAO related to the proposed sole source award of the Textron AT-6 Wolverine as a non-developmental, low-cost Light Attack Aircraft (LAA) weapon system. At issue is the sole source (emphasis theirs) nature of the award.

Publicly available information shows the AT-6 sole source award is intended for testing and development of AEROnet – a low-cost, exportable datalink architecture, which could be exported to allied air forces.

While the development of an exportable datalink architecture like AEROnet is certain to enhance the combat capability of our allied nations, Air Tractor submits that other aircraft warrant consideration for this project vice sole source. UPDATE ENDS.

Bunch, for his part, seemed a bit puzzled over the rationale behind the bid protest, noting a key deficiency in Air Tractor’s initial offering: “The aircraft I remember seeing from them did not have ejection seats.” The issue of ejection seats has been a long-standing Air Force concern.

He was, however, quick to stress Air Tractor’s “absolute” right to submit a protest.

Richard Aboulafia, aircraft market specialist at Teal Group, told Breaking D today that he too was a bit baffled by the bid protest. “The stakes are so small,” he said, explaining that there isn’t exactly a booming market for this class of aircraft. Sales of Light Attack Aircraft types “of all flavors,” he said, only amount “to one or two a month since time immemorial.” Even the A-29 Super Tucano, “the most popular and successful of the bunch” has only racked up a total of a “couple hundred,” he added.

UPDATE BEGINS. But, sources say, there is method in the company’s madness. It is well known among Foreign Military Sales experts that allied and partner nations often are reluctant to buy a weapon system that has not received, in effect, a US seal of approval by fielding it with the US’s own forces. And indeed, these sources say, Air Tractor’s efforts are aimed directly at that issue — ensuring that it is crystal clear and in the public domain that their aircraft has that US stamp of approval. UPDATE ENDS.

With regard to the current LAA RPF, Bunch also demurred on commenting on the service’s plan for the aircraft following the initial buy. “I cannot give you a run down on the exact aircraft experimentation plan,” he said.

That said, he added that a key issue was making sure that any eventual plan took into account the needs of allies and partner countries.

The Light Attack Aircraft program since its inception has been linked to overseas sales, in part to help defray Air Force costs but also because such a plane is useful for the types of counterinsurgency operations partner nations have been involved in over the last decade. As we have reported, Afghanistan and Lebanon already using the A-29 in limited numbers in such operations.

Under current Air Force plans, both the A-29 and AT-6 will be purchased with $156 million in procurement funds currently in the Air Force budget. That includes $56.7 million in reprogrammed fiscal 2018 research, development, test, and evaluation funds and $100 million in 2019 procurement funds.

However, future experimentation with the aircraft will depend on the Air Force obtaining the $35 million it asked for in fiscal 2020 — something that is now up in the air as congressional appropriators battle over the Trump Administration’s plan to shift military construction funds to the southern border wall. Indeed, the US government is currently functioning via a second Continuing Resolution, signed by the Senate today and set to expire in mid-December as the House and Senate (and the White House) hash out the issue.