I lost the link, but it appears the Afghan military will be buying Brazilian Super Toucanos for their air force. It seems like a capable aircraft and looks fun to fly. It also looks like Brazil designed a ground attack type prop job that is inferior to WW2 era planes such as the P-47 in almost every aspect except cost to build/maintain. I would definitely feel safer sitting in the Thunderbolt with eight .50's and lots of armor. The Toucano is a great throwback in appearance to WW2 planes it demands gaudy nose art.

What do the pilots here know about the Toucano?

Looks like a pretty inexpensive aircraft all things considered. Should provide exactly what Afghanistan needs in a ground attack aircraft against insurgents with no aerial presence.

Besides not sounding as cool, how do you think it's inferior to 70-80 year old airplanes?

Compared to the Super Toucano:

The P-47 is faster, has twice the armament, more armor, an engine that can absorb more punishment/damage, more range, etc. It was an expensive aircraft to produce.

You could also include the A-4 Skyraider, the F-4 Corsair, probably the British Super Typhoon. You might as well throw in the Stuka as an adequate ground attack aircraft for the Afghans. Maybe the South Koreans should buy the Toucanos to deal with the threat of the old Russian bi-planes the North Koreans are still using.

The P-47 had dick for armament compared to a super tucano. Eight .50 cal's isn't worth rockets or GBU's. An extra 100 knots would have made a difference in WWII in air to air. For what the super tucano is used for its more or less pointless. Faster than a helicopter, slower than a jet.

Also I assume you meant A-1 Skyraider and not A-4 Skyhawk.

Loiter time, baby.

But I'm not a pilot.

What he said. Plus 4th Generation avionics. Yeah baby!

You're right, I was thinking of the A-1. When I was comparing the P-47 to the Toucano, I was envisioning the P-47 with modernized hard points for advanced rocketry. I had a buddy that was taking flight lessons a few years ago somewhere near Ft. Worth. As he was taxiing down the runway he said he saw a hangar with a couple crop dusters modified to accept air to ground missiles. He knew what he was seeing and figured it was probably an ongoing experiment for ground attack options for Afghan type air forces.

1. P-47
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n. AV-8

http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2013/September/11/crop-dusters-go-to-war

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-08-29/air-tractors-crop-duster-other-planes-revamped-for-military-use

Air Tractor built a military version of their crop duster. Pretty good pictures in the links above. (I suck at the internet, but my excuse is I'm an old fart.)

Time to move on past the crop dusters. The times, they are a changin'.

The avionics are what makes it good. The addition of GPS targeting systems (and maybe a laser designator?) among other things make it far more effective than a plane from WW2.

I think the first flaw in your logic is that a P-47 was a fighter/bomber, later pushed into a ground attack role. The Super Turcano is a Counter Insurgency (COIN) aircraft, made to go after terrorists/guerrillas. It's not a ground attack aircraft like a Stuka or an A-10.

I think as said above, you have a more reliable engine on a modern air frame with vastly better avionics. A P-47 was pretty much going to spray-and-pray with its guns, and drop bombs somewhere in the vicinity of the target. They needed armor because they were being shot at by German 88s, or platoons of disciplined German infantry with MG42s. Also, a P-47 was trying to blow up tanks, or supply trains or other hard targets. COIN aircraft are going to use smaller, much more precise weapons.

The COIN mission is different, is it not? Going after small groups of insurgents who have limited AA weapons. Blowing up pickups instead of panzers.

On a side note, Beechcraft is trying to sell a version of their T-6 trainer as a ground attack plane. Since the Afghan Air Force is using American money, there was a real
push to buy American. Apparently Beech lost out to the Brazilians in
the fly-off

When I made the comparison of the performance of the two aircraft, I should have said that I was envisioning the P-47 with modernized avionics and hard points.

Nobody wants a huge, complicated, unreliable radial engine that requires much more maintenance and high octane gasoline.

Plus a P-47 with new avionics, weapons, sensors, and hard points is a new aircraft. That aircraft is a super tucano.

Everyone forgets the OV-10.

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Everyone forgets the OV-10.

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I don't. Saw one at a Marine airpower demo in the 70s. Came screaming down the runway at 2' AGL, pulled into a vertical climb. At about 200' AGL, five Recon Marines came tumbling out the back and parachuted in. Very cool.

Sometime in the early 80's, Cannon AFB, NM, beautiful fall afternoon. I'm on a soccer field coaching a practice of my youth soccer team. An entire squadron of Marine OV-10s flies over the base in formation and then they peel off one by one to land at Cannon for a fuel stop.

What a glorious sight, AND sound, that was!

I knew several former AF OV-10 pilots when I was in the AF. They had served in Viet Nam and had lots of harrowing stories to tell - many of them involving taking off in a very overloaded condition while evacuating troops/local villagers from tense situations.

It was a COIN aircraft and had a very interesting beginning. From wiki:

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The aircraft was initially conceived in the early 1960s through an informal collaboration between WH Beckett and Colonel KP Rice, U.S. Marine Corps, who met at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, and who also happened to live near each other. The original concept was for a rugged, simple, close air support aircraft integrated with forward ground operations. At the time, the U.S. Army was still experimenting with armed helicopters, and the U.S. Air Force was not interested in close air support.

Beckett and Rice developed a basic platform meeting these requirements, then attempted to build a fiberglass prototype in a garage. The effort produced enthusiastic supporters and an informal pamphlet describing the concept. WH Beckett, who had retired from the Marine Corps, went to work at North American Aviation to sell the aircraft.

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The AF was not interested in close air support? Who would have thunk it? [/sarcasm] 50+ years later that has not changed. Sad.

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Everyone forgets the OV-10.

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The OV-10 is a cool plane. It has been evaluated extensively in recent years. We aren't bringing it back, and the cost of upgrading them is probably more than just buying super tucanos.