February 14, 2012

Beechcraft AT-6 Aircraft launches a Laser Guided Missle

Beechcraft has been developing the AT-6 aircraft and announced today that the aircraft became the first fixed wing vehicle to launch a laser-guided missile.  In case you are not familiar with the AT-6, here is a video put out by Aviation Week
 

This is a good example of using existing technologies to develop a new capability.  The COTS technologies also make it potentially easy to maintain.  However, given the cost of training pilots and maintainers, it is unlikely that this aircraft will be fielded before the expected pull out of troops from Afghanistan next year.  

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