https://crsreports.congress.gov
Updated November 24, 2021
Air Force OA-X Light Attack Aircraft/SOCOM Armed
Overwatch Program
On October 24, 2019, the U.S. Air Force issued a final
request for proposals declaring its intent to acquire a new
type of aircraft. The OA-X light attack aircraft is a small,
two-seat turboprop airplane designed for operation in
relatively permissive environments. The start of a formal
program followed a series of Air Force “experiments” to
determine the utility of such an aircraft.
After the Air Force experiments ended, the program passed
to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as the
“Armed Overwatch” program, with a goal of acquiring 75
aircraft for a somewhat different mission. In November,
2021, SOCOM issued its own request for proposals, with a
different set of competitors.
Why Light Attack?
During 2018, then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson
often expressed the purpose of a new light attack aircraft as
giving the Air Force an ability to free up more sophisticated
and expensive assets for other tasks, citing the example of
using high-end F-22 jets to destroy a drug laboratory in
Afghanistan as an inefficient use of resources. Per-hour
operating costs for light attack aircraft are typically about
2%-4% those of advanced fighters.
She and other officials also noted that the 2018 National
Defense Strategy put a greater emphasis on potential
conflicts against capably armed nation-states, further
stressing a need to minimize the use of high-end assets in
other types of conflict. (For more on that document, see
CRS Insight IN10855, The 2018 National Defense Strategy,
by Kathleen J. McInnis.)
Conversely, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had
criticized the Air Force as focusing excessively on the kind
of high-end, near-peer conflicts envisioned in that strategy;
the light attack aircraft can be seen as making the Air Force
more relevant to low-end and counterinsurgency warfare.
History
In January, 2016, LtGen James Holmes (then Air Force
Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and
Requirements) told CRS the Air Force was considering
starting two programs related to ground-attack operations.
One, called OA-X, would examine existing, “off-the-shelf”
light attack aircraft to add a low-end capability for use in
relatively permissive air environments such as Afghanistan
and Iraq. The other, “AX-2,” would develop a replacement
for the existing A-10 Thunderbolt II. The Air Force
subsequently publicized these concepts, although they were
not included in the fiscal 2017 budget submission.
On July 31, 2017, the Air Force began what it called the
Capability Assessment of Non-Developmental Light Attack
Platforms, an “experiment” to determine the utility of an
OA-X, its ability to operate with coalition partners, and to
evaluate initial candidate aircraft. The first phase included
the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29, Textron/Beechcraft AT-
6B, and Air Tractor/L3 OA-802 turboprops, variants of
which are in service with other countries, and the
developmental Textron Scorpion jet. First-phase operations
continued through August 2017.
Figure 1. Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29
Source: U.S. Department of Defense.
Note: Shown in Afghan service.
Figure 2. Textron/Beechcraft AT-6
Source: U.S. Air Force photo by Ethan D. Wagner.
Figure 3. Air Tractor/L3 OA-802
Source: L-3.
