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Air Force doesn’t need C-27J

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out his 2010 budget recommendations, his 3,442-word statement made no mention of the C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft.

If Gates really wants to restructure the military and end wasteful procurement — and he insists he does — he missed a bet.

JCA began as the Future Cargo Aircraft program of 2004, a modest, Army-only effort that made sense and never needed to involve the Air Force.

When Air Force leaders saw a chance to grab some Army turf, the program morphed into the Army-Air Force JCA.

The aircraft itself is a twin-engined tactical airlifter, a descendant of Italy’s Fiat G.222 transport and the Italian-built Alenia/Chrysler C-27A Spartan operated by U.S. Southern Command in Latin America in the 1990s. Because the Air Force JCA will follow the C-27A, former chief of staff Gen. T. Michael “Buzz” Moseley wanted to adhere to procedure and name it the C-27B. Today, the Air Force retains the industry term C-27J instead.

As JCA is now structured, the Air Force will initially buy 70 transports. The Army’s number: 75.

Purely to protect its purview and without any justification for the costly introduction of a new aircraft type, the Air Force muscled in, failed in its effort to take over JCA and is now a partner in the program. To guard its prerogative, the Air Force plans to assign C-27Js to the Air National Guard, which wields heavy clout on Capitol Hill.

This is Washington politics at its worst. It’s a disservice to troops and taxpayers.

“A requirements study needs to be done,” Air National Guard chief Lt. Gen. Henry M. “Bud” Wyatt III said in a telephone interview, referring to the C-27J. “We may need to change our concept of operations.”

In one approach that goes beyond the absurd, Air Force Special Operations Command will test an AC-27J “Gunship Lite” version of the JCA. Special ops airmen confide that they can see some use for a smaller, more nimble gunship but would prefer an improved version of today’s AC-130H/U Specter/Spooky gunship, which has greater range and carries more sensors, ammunition and guns.

Scrounging for a job for the C-27J simply to keep the Army from having its own fixed-wing transport is just plain nuts.

For the tactical airlift and gunship missions, the C-27J offers no advantages over the C-130.

So why didn’t Gates simply kill the Air Force version of the C-27J? The apparent reason is that the secretary was gunning for big-war programs and the C-27J is seen as a small-war asset.

It’s not too late. The Air Force should get out of the C-27J business and focus on aircraft that are better suited to its own missions.