Persistent Close Air Support

Persistent Close Air Support (PCAS) is a DARPA program that seeks to demonstrate dramatic capability improvements in close air support (CAS) capabilities by developing a system to allow continuous CAS availability and lethality to Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs).

The program will give JTACs the ability to visualize, select, and employ munitions at the time of their choosing from optionally manned/unmanned aerial attack platforms.

PCAS was to demonstrate using an A-10 Thunderbolt II modified for optionally manned operation, however the program did not seek to remove pilots from the cockpit of A-10s or other manned military aircraft. Technologies developed under the program were to transition to both current manned aircraft and the MQ-X next-generation unmanned aircraft. With the cancellation of the MQ-X program, the PCAS program dropped the idea of using an optionally manned A-10, and refocused the effort to allow the JTAC controller to interface with "smart rail" electronics on a manned A-10. Live-fire demonstrations will take place in 2015.