Gas turbines have many issues when used on teh ground
1. Poor responsiveness.
2. High fuel consumption especially on partial load (regime where cars spend 99% of teh time)
3. High air consumption and therefore vulnerability to dust.
youtube.com
For aircraft? Fuel consumption.
how the fuck is northrop even still alive at this point? when was their last real contract? how long will they be able to hold unto the talent?
Northrop was given the B-2 development which was the deepest moneysink until F-35 came around. Also in a desperate attempt of the congress to present themselves as totally-not-lobbyist-pawns and their Lockheeb overlords as toatally-not-a-monopoly they try to keep Northrop afloat by throwing them breadcrumbs of whatever project Lockheeb does not have the resources or experience to even pretend they are on, fe the B-21. Also living on Grumman's retirement money but that's already nearly depleted.
On a sidenote there's some sentimentality left to dictate that flying-wing designs (that are pretty much the future for anything subsonic) are a Northrop specialty/legacy.
They got the B-21 contract.
prop planes are on average slower, but pull more per unit fuel than a jet.
a propeller plane cost less to manufacture, can haul more munitions, and can take off on a shorter runway that is poorly maintained. this make them ideal bush craft but also they can be put on local airbases and cost less and provide localized air-cover.
there are three kinds of air danger ratings, light, medium, and heavy. light is a madman with two pearl hilt revolvers shooting in the air. medium is speratic machine-gun fire. heavy is true AA like a flack gun or AA missles.
a LAC can only handle light to medium safely. so if you have "Haji" hold up and need a morter team taken out, call a LAC and boom done.
local airbases are shit. It actually costs more and difficult to defend in the insurgency country than fly over it.
I doubt that tiny thing can produce enough power to work my lawn mower.
Though I am stunned that they got the thing to work. 10/10. Added the channel to my RSS feed.
the implication is that you leave from an airbase that has sufficient range and is protected enough. the lost of a LAC is minimal to its crew and more valuable Fighter/attackers.
Sandniggers and colombian jungle guerillas don't really have much in the way of AA one way or another, let alone quality MANPADs that can overcome flares.
The last big contract they got was for the Global Hawk/Triton program, which was massively profitable.