Cessna Unveils Scorpion Military Jet

Cessna Unveils Military Jet

AVwebFlash

September 18, 2013

Cessna unveiled a twin-engine military interceptor/utility jet that CEO Scott Ernest told his local Rotary Club will diversify the company's product line and provide a relatively inexpensive alternative to traditional fighter aircraft in some roles.

The Scorpion was built in secret over the last 18 months by Cessna engineers at a facility in Wichita. It has a composite airframe and the engines were run for the first time last weekend.

"It's basically built..and we are hopefully going to fly it here in the next two to three weeks," Ernest is quoted by the Wichita Journal as telling the Rotarians. "It'll be good. It's just another opportunity for us to invest in the future."

Ernest told the gathering the aircraft will cost about $3,000 an hour to fly, about 10 percent of the cost of an F-35, and it will carry a big payload of military hardware. He did not specify what armament it might carry and instead stressed its potential role carrying sensors for data collection.

Besides the Air Force, Ernest said the aircraft might appeal to the National Guard. "It can be very effective within their stable of planes if they allow it to be and very reliable....It's a cheap alternative to flying some of the other product, so we'll see," Ernest was quoted as saying. A purchase price wasn't mentioned.

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Comments from an AVweb Insider


The moment I saw the conceptual art on Cessna's new proposed twin-engine jet tactical aircraft, the Scorpion, three questions came immediately to mind.

• Is that thing stealthy? not likely, when combined with inexpensive and COTS
• Can it be pilot-optional? would likely make a reasonable UAS if you fit a satellite dish in the cockpit and up the endurance.
• And last, huh? 

The answer to the first two questions might be mooted by the answer to the third: Since the Pentagon biting on this idea is a long shot, foreign sales may be what Cessna has in mind, along with its partner developmental company, AirLand Enterprises.

This is the sort of project you don't see much anymore, given the cost escalation and vast profit margins in modern weapons systems and the R&D dollars it takes to create them. The Pentagon has not asked for such an airplane, so if Cessna wants U.S. sales, it will be cold calling. Sales in the emerging world may be a different matter, however. The defense export business has proven profitable for many U.S. manufacturers. Still, things are a little different now. The countries with money -- Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- have their own emerging domestic aircraft industries and if light, cheap, and unsophisticated is the selling point, couldn't those countries roll their own and export the results? Cessna may be aiming to find out.

What the Scorpion is supposed to be is a cheap-to-operate, built-from-the-parts-bin reconnaissance and surveillance platform with some strike capability. But doesn't that describe the $4-million-a-pop Predator UAV, not to mention the next generation of drones we don't even know about? Is there really a need for a five-hour endurance jet to fly missions that UAVs are already doing?

With budget cuts looming, perhaps Cessna and AirLand are counting on the Pentagon getting religion on less expensive -- that's not the same as cheap -- weapons systems. Then again, when has it ever, at least recently? I suspect Cessna will need lots of friends in Congress to overcome the legions of supporters that Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman have cultivated over the years. Although it's sometimes forgotten, Cessna is no stranger to military aircraft. But its experience with the venerable A-37 Dragonfly, a Vietnam workhorse, is decades old. Textron (partnered with Boeing) does have military contracts in the V-22 Osprey and various subsystems. But Cessna was never in the league of a Lockheed, Grumman, or McDonnell Douglas in the military realm. Perhaps that's a market advantage. Plying the competitive civil market for so many years, Cessna has had to be efficient and fast-moving, bringing products to market on time and on budget, something not normally associated with military contractors. The F-35 comes to mind. In stepping out of the civil jet realm, Cessna is stretching. I hope it doesn't distract it further from interest in the lowly piston airplane, something that's fallen to a record low ebb.

But there's one good reason to cheer for the success of this project. If it puts more of Wichita back to work, that's a good thing.

Remember the Northrop Grumman F5 and F20. This would seem to be another such.