What Makes the OA-1K Sky Raider II a GAME CHANGER in Air Support?

The U.S. Air Force just dusted off the propeller playbook and said, “Yeah, we’re doing this again.” Meet the OA-1K Skyraider II, a rugged, ugly, low-tech beast that’s about as far from the F-35 as you can get. And that’s the point.

This isn’t about stealth or supercruise. This is about showing up every single time, even when the runway is a goat path and the nearest Starbucks is 400 miles away. Born from Air Tractor and upgraded by L3Harris, the Skyraider II is the love child of a crop duster and a warplane, and Special Operations Command is very interested.

Actually, Ukraine just did the same thing with one of their crop dusters by arming it with R-73 missiles!

In this video, I break down:
• Why the Pentagon is betting on a tailwheel aircraft in 2025 (spoiler: test pilots had to relearn how to fly like it was 1944).
• The Skyraider II’s weapons loadout: 14 precision APKWS II rockets, Hellfires, and a sensor suite sharp enough to track, lase, and strike all at once.
• How it’s designed for low-cost, persistent overwatch in places like Somalia, Yemen, or eastern Ukraine, anywhere the shiny jets are too expensive or too fragile.
• Why naming it after the Vietnam-era Skyraider isn’t just nostalgia, it’s a warning shot to enemies who underestimate low-tech warhorses.

This thing isn’t glamorous. It won’t impress at an airshow. But if you’re pinned down in a canyon, you’d rather have a Skyraider II overhead than a PowerPoint slide promising support.

I’ll also cover the legacy of the original A-1 Skyraider in Vietnam, the quirks of flying a taildragger in the age of drones, and whether this is the Air Force’s quiet replacement for the A-10. Spoiler: It’s not a Warthog, but it might just be the Swiss Army knife of close air support.

If you enjoy deep dives into military tech, battlefield innovation, and how old-school warbirds are making a comeback, hit that subscribe button and share this video. The Pentagon may be addicted to gold-plated jets, but sometimes all you need is a propeller, a case of JP-8, and a pilot who can land in a cornfield.

Glory to Ukraine. Glory to the heroes. Crimea is Ukraine.

Video Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18...

tldr: The United States Air Force is bringing back a prop plane with the OA-1K Sky Raider II. It's rugged, it's everything the F-35 isn't, and that's by design, especially for close air support. The Sky Raider II is gloriously low-tech on purpose, and the USAF is proving that sometimes older tech still has a place in modern warfare. Ukraine is also experimenting with low and slow for counter-drone missions.

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