Ramona Adams
Industry participants in the U.S. Air Force‘s OA-X light attack aircraft demonstration are eyeing a separate opportunity to sell light attack planes to the U.S. Special Operations Command, Defense News reported.
The Air Force released a presolicitation notice on FedBizOpps in July to gain industry feedback on “platform-agnostic” light attack aircraft technologies that can address the needs of special operations forces.
Brian Brackens, an Air Force spokesman, said the SOCOM effort dubbed Light Attack Support for Special Operations seeks technologies such as sensors, munitions and mission systems that can be installed aboard any light attack platform.
Brackens added LASSO is different from the OA-X experiment, which is focused on the light attack platform itself, and that SOCOM does not intend to build its own light attack aircraft.
Representatives of OA-X participants including Textron, the Sierra Nevada Corp.–Embraer team and the L3 Technologies–Air Tractor alliance have told Defense News that they are watching the LASSO opportunity and are awaiting further information on the effort.
