LOYAL WINGMAN — THE FUTURE OF AIR COMBAT?
BRINGING YOU THE LATEST TALK FROM AROUND THE SQUADRONS
“Known as ‘Have Raider’, the program was geared towards having an unmanned F-16 autonomously leave its manned lead aircraft, conduct a surface attack mission, and then rejoin on its flight lead
OF ALL THE mission subsets contained under an umbrella known as offensive counter-air, or OCA, one of the most dangerous is SEAD (pronounced ‘seed’) — the suppression of enemy air defenses. Born in late 1965 under Project ‘Weasel’, this skill set was of paramount importance and centered around dealing with air defense systems as American aircraft fell from the skies over South-east Asia when targeted by Soviet-built surfaceto- air missile (SAM) systems like the SA-2 and SA-3.
As time has passed and subsequent conflicts have come and gone, the need for SEAD has increased dramatically. The legacy of Vietnam’s intrepid Wild Weasels lives on in today’s US Air Force, but times are changing. The Lockheed Martin F-35A’s low-observable characteristics, its dizzying array of sensory capability, and the pilot’s ability to manage the battle space means the F-35 will be to SEAD what the Raptor has become for air dominance.
The ti…
