ARES light attack jet

[dragon53]

Link: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... ened-19939

[tmanthegreat]

This concept of the "light attack jet" keeps making me think of some of my old GI Joe planes... Given that those were typically under-scaled, I always envisioned something like the X-30 Conquest being just a smallish jet fighter (about half the size of a standard fighter like an F-16) made for precisely the same reasons stated in the article - low cost, long endurance, close support, with enough speed and maneuverability to be able to engage in air-to-air combat if necessary.

Looking at Rutan's ARES jet, it is almost just as tiny.