The U.S. Air Force is now thinking
about turning its C-17 transport into a bomber. In the last few years,
the JDAM (satellite guided smart bomb) has made aerial bombing far more
effective. Because of the satellite guidance (GPS), aircraft can drop
the bomb from any altitude, and still get the same accuracy. Thus
bombers can stay high, out of range of ground fire. That got people,
inside and outside the air force, thinking about using transports, like
the C-17, as bombers. Transports are equipped to drop heavy equipment,
mounted on pallets, by parachute. It would be a simple matter to have
smart bombs, on small pallets, shoved out the rear of C-17s (or C-130s,
Etc.) This proposal upset the air force generals, most of whom are
combat pilots. So the idea never went far, until now.
What has
got the generals excited is using C-17s as a flying aircraft carrier.
Well, sort of. The C-17s would carry pallets loaded with ?Dominator?
UAVs. The idea behind ?Dominator? is persistence, a one way UAV that
carries two or more missiles, and lots of sensors for finding targets.
The Dominator could cruise around for 12, 24 or more hours. After that,
it would self-destruct, or dive into a target. The air force has been
working on the Dominator for two years now, and there?s no guarantee
that it would ever be built. It will be expensive for a disposable
weapon, as it will have many of the characteristics of a UAV like the
Predator, that costs over four million dollars each. The concept,
apparently, is that the C-17 would get as close to the combat zone
(taking enemy air defenses into account) as possible, and dump the
Dominators out the back of the aircraft. Current plans call for a C-17
carrying twenty or more Dominators. Now that would be a formidable
amount of ground attack air power. A dozen or more Dominators, that
would cruise at about 250 kilometers an hour, could cover a huge area,
which would become a no-go zone for enemy forces below.
And there?s still the possibility of dropping JDAMs from C-17s as well?
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