Photos show new special ops planes that can land almost everywhere

The command of Air Force special operations obtained its first Skyraider II attack plane ready for the mission last month, and this week, Business Insider had an overview of the new light attack plane at the SOF Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida.

The air tractor and the director of L3harris AT-802U Sky, appointed the OA-1K Skyraider II by AFSOC in reference to the A-1 Skyraiders of Korean wars and Vietnam, is an armed intelligence, surveillance and recognition, support close to air, and to take a plane that says that L3harris can land almost anywhere.

The new Light Attack plane is a militarized variant of the air tractor at 802 long used for civil work such as agriculture.

Here is what it looks like:

The Air Force describes the Skyraider II as a flexible plane which can be adjusted for different missions and fights, noting that it has a much more manageable maintenance request and a cost per lower flight hour than other AFSOC planes.

Like its legendary predecessor, the new Skyraider was built for armed overwatch and attacks in permissive environments, although the battle space is not what it was in the past, and there are questions about its role in a high intensity struggle in Indo-Pacific.

Jon Rambeau, president of Integrated Mission Systems from L3harris, said that the Sky Warden is a “versatile” platform and “costs a fraction of what you could pay for a fighter plane”. The amount of cost of planes is a detail that is not accessible to the public.

Rambeau and Clint Logwood, director of flight tests and L3harris flight operations, said one of the most important attributes of Skyraider II is its ability to operate in different environments. It can also land almost anywhere with a limited logistics imprint.

“This thing could land anywhere,” said Logwood, robust and distant aerodromes to highways.

The Air Force has priority to flexibility, in particular the capacity to operate in austere environments and unconventional tracks such as roads. Aerodromes and fixed bases are easy targets, especially in Indo-Pacific where American forces have to face the growing missile force of China, but an opponent cannot target each piece of concrete in the region.

Logwood, which has taken many hours of testing the capacity of the plane, force G, speed, temperature and altitude, said: “We won this plane on certain fields that would hold your teeth, and this plane simply says:” Is that all you have? “”

Sky’s goalkeeper has “Plug and Play technology,” he said. It has a modular design, which means that new systems can be quickly integrated into the plane. There are ten hard points capable of transporting a range of weapons and other technologies.

Although there are two seats in the Warden Sky, it is a unique pilot plane in which all its systems are designed to be accessible by one person and easy to learn.

And its cost per hour, said Rambeau, is less than $ 1,000 per hour, one of the cheaper cost estimates of the Air Force fleet. He added that L3harris was also in conversation with potential international customers around the world.

Below the wings of the Sky goalkeeper, noted Logwood, his Hellfire AGM 114 missiles were, as well as SSR sensors and paintings. If another mission pod is necessary, it can be bolted and connected to the plane.

The Sky goalkeeper can be dissipated in less than six hours and adapt inside a C-17 cargo plane.

The program was initially contracted for 75 aircraft as part of an agreement of $ 3 billion; In 2023 and 2024, the Government Accountability Office published reports urging the Pentagon to reconsider the number of necessary planes, citing the concerns that the program would not be as precious as the United States pass decades of anti-terrorist operations featuring the air superiority in almost permitted adversarial battles.

Rambeau cited the potential international sales of the plane as examples “to dispel the idea that this only applies to counter-insurgency”, saying that these customers were looking at the plane for various ends.

While Sky Warden is able to take off and land almost everywhere, Rambeau and Logwood have said that it should be changed for operators based. The plane requires a distance of about 1,200 feet. For fighters and bombers, the required track length tends to be thousands of feet.

The original Skyraider has acquired its legendary reputation by protecting the aviators slaughtered in Vietnam. Unlike jets that could not stay in the region, the Skyraiders could stroll for long periods and bring a massive firepower for the continuous removal of shooting until helicopters can come for rescue operations.

Skyraider driver, Major Bernard Fisher landed his plane through the enemy fire withered in a landing track marked by the battle strewn with debris and destroyed planes, saved a slaughtered aviator and returned after having taken up his plane several blows during a 1966 fight in Ashau. Fisher received the medal of honor for her actions.

The Air Force hopes that the new Skyraiders will provide the same exceptional type of support for the troops in future fights.