U.S. Special Operations Command, Selected L3-Harris’ AT-802U Sky Warden, New Overwatch Aircraft for Special Operations

 

U.S. Special Operations Command’s new Armed Over-watch aircraft, The AT-802U Sky Warden, made by L3-Harris Technologies and aircraft manufacturer Air Tractor, is U.S. Special Operations Command’s pick for a rugged plane that can carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, close air support, and strike missions in austere locations.

The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract will be worth up to $3 billion, L3-Harris said in a release. The initial program contract award is for $170 million. Air Tractor is an aircraft manufacturer from Olney, Texas, that typically makes firefighting aircraft and agricultural planes such as crop dusters.

Initial production of the Sky Warden will take place at Air Tractor’s facility in Olney. L3-Harris  will then modify those planes into the Armed Over-watch mission configuration at its Tulsa, Oklahoma modification center, beginning in 2023. L3-Harris said work will also take place at its other sites in Greenville, Rockwall and Waco, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee.

L3-Harris’ contract also includes providing training systems, mission planning systems, support equipment, spares and logistical support. The Sky Warden could be armed with six weapons stations, with the laser-guided 2.75 inch Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, or rocket being its primary weapon. Sky Warden could also carry GBU-12 Paveway laser-guided bombs, and L3-Harris  is close to having it capable of carrying the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. 

Air Force Special Operations Command’s Armed Over-watch program aims to build a fleet of up to 75 flexible, fixed-wing aircraft suitable for deployment to austere locations, with little logistical tail needed to keep them operating. Special Operations Command is planning for the single-engine Sky Warden, as AFSOC’s Armed Overwatch plane, to be able to provide close air support, precision strike and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for counterterrorism operations and irregular warfare.

commander Lt. Gen. Jim Slife said last year he hopes Armed Over-watch aircraft will be suited to pressure extremist groups in places like Africa, in which the airspace is essentially uncontested. The Air Force moved to establish a series of Armed Over-watch planes as it shifted its primary focus and some of its more complex and expensive-to-operate fighters and bombers.

In an interview with Defense News, Luke Savoie, president of L3-Harris Technologies’ ISR sector, said the company’s use of model-based engineering and modular open systems allowed it to design a low-cost aircraft tailored to deliver what special operators need in the field.

L3-Harris created three prototype Sky Wardens. One was fully missionized, with all the modifications to do everything an operational Armed Over-watch plane would have to do. The company sent that prototype to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida last summer for U.S. Special Operations Command’s evaluation. Four other companies also demonstrated their prototypes to U.S. Special Operations Command in 2021 and early 2022.

A second prototype was built for L3-Harris’s own flight tests and to qualify the plane’s autopilot. L3-Harris also built a third Sky Warden prototype to test and certify the aircraft’s strengthened, high-load wing to ensure it could carry up to 6,000 pounds of external ordnance. Savoie said Sky Warden can be easily prepared for deployment on a C-17 or C-5 mobility aircraft. The plane can be disassembled in about 7 hours, loaded on a cargo plane, and then reassembled in about the same amount of time once it’s reached its destination.

Construction of the Sky Wardens will begin at Air Tractor’s Olney, Texas facility. Once those airframes are built, they will be shipped to L3-Harris ’s modification center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where work to modify them for the Armed Over-watch mission will take place.