
handyman wrote:Thats what drones are for. No point in risking a pilot low and slow just to get the bad guy duck and cover. F35s will always be flying along side drones.
This is why aircraft and pilots that aren't good at CAS shouldn't do CAS. "just getting the bad guy to duck and cover" saves lives, handy. If it works, it works. Now, make no mistake, blowing-up the truck that the bad guys buddy is in also has a remarkable impact on his will to fight, but sometimes you can't do that. Sometimes the situation is so screwed up that you can't determine who's who. You can't very well shoot into there, now can you? Especially not with an F-35 at 30K, 30 miles a way, ripping off a JAGM (someday, maybe). All you can do in that situation is wait and try to figure things out, while people die, or go in there and "risk a pilot" so you can save 20, 40, 100 friendly lives. This is why I say we must stop thinking about CAS as an air war. It is a ground war and the jet is merely a support asset. If you're going in to drop a power plant or crater a runway, you have the luxury of saying "I can't see risking a pilot or a plane to do X or Y". You can't do that in CAS. I can tell you, friend, that there comes a day in a CAS pilots life that the guy on the other end of the radio and a lot of his buddies are going to DIE if you don't do something and do it right now. How can you, in that situation say "I can't justify risking a plane and pilot" when dozens of our own boys are down there getting KILLED. CAS is real, guys, not Falcon 4.0, and if you or your plane can't perform all aspects of CAS, then you should get the F out.