America's Special Forces NEWEST Attack Aircraft: The OA-1K Sky Raider II

Give the commander that hip pocket firepower, that hip pocket ISR, as far forward as we can get it. That's unmatched by any other platform in the Air Force. Out of all my years in the Air Force, 35 years and 47, 48 hours, it has the most advanced avionics in the cockpit of anything I flew in the Air Force, with the Garmin systems, all the support that it brings with it. Anything that fits the MIL standard 1760 interface, we can plug and play. So you do see the 2.75-inch rockets, the Hellfires behind me. We have integrated standoff precision-guided munitions, H&P 400 machine guns, dropped 500-pound class precision-guided bombs. It has the same level of communications and ISR capabilities and even weapons capabilities of some very high-end platforms. So it enables any partner around the world to be able to integrate with a joint force, whatever it may be operating in that area, as well as joint forces on the ground. We did not enter into the Skyraider name lightly. If you're a student of history, a student of the war in Southeast Asia, Skyraider will jump right to the front of the queue, whether it was Cass down south or SARCAP up north. They were always the one that would be right in the middle of the rescue of any guy on the ground. They'd be taking a lot of ground fire and very often they didn't make it back. You know, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. I am absolutely sure that we will meet that requirement. Today we're in Waco, Texas at L3 Harris, and we're getting an exclusive look at the plane you see behind me, the Skyraider II International. This plane really is the Swiss Army knife when it comes to what you're able to hang underneath it, from armament to sensors, providing intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, as well as kinetic effects on the battle space. The Skyraider II carries the legacy of the original A1 Skyraider from the Vietnam era. This is not a nostalgia project. This airplane brings modern technology, advanced sensors, and a full weapons suite to the battle space. It's rugged. It operates from austere environments with a minimal footprint. This makes it exactly what the battlefield commander has been asking for, an airplane that can find the target, stay on station, and then put steel on it, all from one platform. It took years to get to this point. From Vietnam, Air Force Special Operations Command has flown a series of aircraft trying to answer the armed overwatch requirement. Some came close. None of them, however, were purpose-built for this mission. In 2017, the Air Force launched OAX, a competition to find a dedicated light attack platform, a purpose-built solution for persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and precision strike. In 2022, L3 Harris was awarded the contract for the Skyraider II International. In the spring of 2025, the first OA-1K Skyraider II was delivered to Air Force Special Operations Command. This is how the Skyraider II is built and the team that built it. It started life as an 802 air tractor crop duster. By being able to operate in austere forward locations, I don't drag that logistical footprint with me. So I give the commander that hip pocket firepower, that hip pocket ISR, as far forward as we can get it. There is armor plating underneath key parts of the engine. There's armor plating under the header fuel tank, so you don't lose that. There's armor plating under the cockpit, in the sidewalls of the cockpit. There's bulletproof glass in the front three panels there. We have self-sealing panels in the wing, and then we have foam, which is fire suppression in the wings there. Beyond that, we have very similar capability for flares, LA-47s that the rest of the joint force has. They are 47s for the missile warning. Basically give you almost a 360-degree look around the airplane. Before we dive into the production of how a crop duster is turned into a lethal machine, I wondered, how does a plane like this end up carrying one of the most storied names in aviation history? Well, in the special operations world, aircraft controlling the air stack, the one that has the full picture and is responsible for sequencing aircraft in and out of the stack, deciding who shoots, who stays on station, and who goes home, is called the warden. And we took that when SOCOM started looking for the light attack airplane, and we turned that into what we called Sky Warden II. The Sky Warden comes from the warden name, where some of our SOCOM forces, once they got on cap, they were recalled warden to be able to control the entire stack of airplanes there and bring in what was needed and send the others home. When L3 Harris entered the OAX competition, they named their platform the Sky Warden, referencing this warden role. And when Air Force Special Operations Command awarded the contract and actually took inventory of the aircraft, they gave it its official name, one that carried a lot of history with it. When we started this program, the light attack, we called it Sky Warden. SOCOM, as they fielded the airplane, gets to name the airplane anything they choose. So it goes to the lineage from the old A1 Sandy Sky Raiders to now the Sky Raider II. If you're like me and wondering how does a crop duster become the Sky Raider II, well, that's why we're here in Waco on the production line at L3 Harris to see how an 802 arrives to the factory and then just four months later leaves as a combat-ready aircraft. Behind us, we just received our newest addition to the production line. Came straight from Olney, Texas from our partner Air Tractor International. They're actually celebrating a significant milestone next month, which is going to be the 5,000th delivery of aircraft from their facility. That's impressive. Yeah, it's pretty significant. Yeah, so this is brand new. It is getting ready to start its life moving through the production line to become a Sky Raider II. So with that, I would like to jump over if we can go take a look at I guess some of its sister planes that are already on the production line and walk through that. Does that sound good? Absolutely, follow me. Cool. We have a 26,000 square foot facility. We have two rolling production lines that are offset from each other. So that aircraft you saw now is going to go into the leading production line, which is going to be this one right here. Once the aircraft arrives, we do our standard preservation, making sure that the aircraft is ready for induction. In station one, which is what we have right here, we actually do all of our mechanical modifications. So as the aircraft is delivered from Air Tractor, it has certain components that do not make it into the final baseline. So in this particular station, it takes about 30 days where we go through and do the modifications. We take off all of the things that are not going to deliver it in the final configuration. And then we start doing our own mods where we need to do some structural modifications to the outside hull line of the aircraft. Stripping the airframe down is just the beginning. The real transformation happens at station two, where the Sky Raider II gets its nervous system. Modern combat aircraft run on data, sensors, weapons, communications, displays. All of it requires a lot of wiring and a significant amount, all of which is built right here in-house. We install about 300 harnesses here. Combined weight is probably a thousand pounds worth of harnessing that goes through. We actually have a back shop in-house on the other side of the hangar where we build all those harnesses right here. Four months. That's how long it takes to turn a crop duster into a combat ready aircraft. Along the way, some modifications are pretty creative. For example, the 802 gallon hopper, that's the tank that normally carries the fertilizer on the air tractor and also contributes to part of its name. A portion of this space becomes extra fuel, extending the persistence of the airplane over the target, while the rest becomes structural space for avionics. The one thing that doesn't get touched in this process though, is the PT-6A engine and it's earned that right. It's one of the most proven turboprops ever built. I personally have over 1500 hours with PT-6 engines. They're incredibly reliable and you can find them across the globe. When something works, you don't need to fix it. Another truly impressive aspect is the fact that all of this can be taken apart in a matter of hours. Put in a transport aircraft and flown across the globe and the Skyraider can be reassembled in a matter of hours. If you look at the aircraft, the wings are massive. Our team can disassemble the aircraft in about 14 hours and get it ready for shipment in either a C-17 or a C-5. With six weapon stations capable of carrying 6,000 pounds of ordnance, the next question really is, what can this thing actually drop? To put it simply, if it fits a military mount, the Skyraider 2 can shoot it, drop it, and launch it. It's the ultimate plug-and-play system. It has six weapon stations and each weapon station is capable of carrying 1,000 pound class stores on every station. So in total, up to 6,000 plus pounds of ordnance. This plane is currently outfitted with an AAR-47 missile warning system coupled with an ALE-47 countermeasures dispensing system. So you see one countermeasures dispensing bucket on each wing capable of dispensing up to 30 flares at a time. We are also carrying sensor pods with an MX-15 and the MX-20 and then we have a station that is available and open to integrate another sensor pod depending on the particular customer's needs and their mission set up the day. The Skyraider 2 is built with a complement of self-protection systems. One unique aspect is how the cockpit is designed. A unique cage is constructed around the crew, able to withstand 28 Gs. They also incorporate airbags into the seatbelts to protect the crew. Obviously the goal is not to have to rely upon any of these and that's why the Skyraider incorporates modern self-protection systems as well as some unique design characteristics to provide additional protection to the plane and the crew. We've added armor panels to protect both the key parts of the engine, the fuel system. We have self-sealing panels on the wings. There's armor on the sides of the cockpit, under the cockpit, and then there's bulletproof glass in the front three panels there. So that protects the vital aircraft systems as well as the crew. And then we add in the types of missile warning flare dispenser systems that most of the people around the familiar with. AR-47s, AV-47s. Be able to carry flare on both wings and have missile warning systems looking in both directions on both wings. It doesn't matter the number nor the type of ordnance you can carry underneath your wings if you cannot effectively see and communicate with those on the battlefield. The Skyraider 2 carries both an MX-15 and an MX-20. Two sensors simultaneously. The amount of situational awareness this alone provides to the crew and to those on the battlefield is tremendous. Able to feed that high-fidelity picture into both cockpits and off-board into joint operation centers. Couple this with the kinetic capability that's already on station, you have one platform that can find, fix, and finish any target without having to hand it off to another platform. This collapses the stack, the number of planes that are required to be overhead, and compresses the time from when desired effects are on target. A primary engagement system with its 10-64 laser is our MX-15. Now we're doing force protection, we're doing target acquisition, we're doing anything else with this second sensor. Normally you're going to have to choose whether you are going to look at the bigger picture of the battle space or be able to zoom in for a precision strike. However, the Skyraider 2 is packed with a dual sensor setup allowing the crew to do both. Both zoom in and maintain that bigger picture situational awareness. The MX-15 is basically designed to control and employ the weapons in a small area with a very focused look on it. The MX-20 is good at surveilling a bigger area and watching everything around what may be going on in the area while you're targeting weapons with that. So you have a full range of ISR capability between the two sensors over a wide area to be able to do that. And you can have your combat systems officer running one, the pilot in the front can run one, the combat systems can run both, you can run both. It's a lot of flexibility in there. So why not just do this all with an unmanned aerial system? I think that's a fair question. And I think the main point it comes down to is lag. Unmanned aerial systems require beyond line-of-sight communications, which is a massive infrastructure in and of itself. But this means that the data, every command, every sensor feed, every targeting input is traveling through that communication architecture before it gets acted upon. In a static environment, that's manageable. In a dynamic combat situation, those few seconds of lag can make the difference between hitting the target and missing it. There's also something that no unmanned system can replicate. A pilot rolling up, looking out the window, and making a real-time judgment call based upon what they're seeing and what they're hearing from the forces on the ground. The Skyraider 2 brings that to the fight. A human being over the The Skyraider 2 International and the OA-1K Skyraider 2 provide persistent ISR and precision strike and the ability to operate from austere locations near the battle area. It reduces transit time. Because of its legs, it can operate over the target for an extended period of time. And it reduces the amount of people and material we need to put into the battle area to accomplish the task. The capability that this airplane was designed for was to be able to support a team or a small force on the ground in an austere location with no support, no maintenance, no strings back to mother base to be able to support us. And the airplane's claim to fame, as you well as we mentioned, operate in any location anywhere in the world. If you look at a piece of dirt, if I've got 4,000 feet of dirt, I'm in good shape for that. When I was a program manager, I always figured out nobody knew how the airplane was going to be operated until you put it in the hands of the first lieutenant. And he went out there and figured out all the unique things it can do. And we're just at that phase right now. And when that first lieutenant rolls in, the guys on the ground will know exactly what's overhead and exactly what they're capable of. As a former ground operator, I think I can speak for the current ground operator. When they hear the Skyraider name, they know they're coming. They know they'll stay on the battlefield until it's done. And they know that if something happens, there'll be one more right behind it to come in and pick up the mantle.