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Study: Service needs small assault airlifter

The Air Force may need to adjust its airlift capabilities to support counterinsurgencies beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

That’s the conclusion of a new study by the Rand Corp., a government-funded think tank, examining how well the Air Force is prepared to conduct airlift for future counterinsurgency operations.

Airlift for low-intensity counterinsurgencies such as those in Colombia, the Philippines or the Horn of Africa requires the ability to support numerous small, dispersed ground units, the study says.

That could mean the Air Force should look at buying more of the medium-sized Joint Cargo Aircraft and finding a small “assault airlifter” available on the commercial market.

“Buying a larger number of [Joint Cargo Aircraft] as opposed to a smaller number of large airlift aircraft ... will produce the effect of giving you more tails to be in more places at the same time,” said Karl Mueller, a defense policy analyst at Rand and one of the study’s authors. “So if you have a problem with not having enough tails to meet all your airlift needs, that could be fairly attractive to you.”

But the JCA is not a magic bullet, Mueller said. The aircraft could be useful for carrying smaller cargos to numerous small units, he said, but it was not designed to take off and land on short, rough airstrips such as those found in much of the developing world.

For that, the Air Force might need to look for an assault airlifter, which Mueller defined as an aircraft that can carry “a couple of tons into short, rough strips less than 1,000 feet long.”

But Mueller said it is unlikely the Air Force would develop a new assault airlift program even if it decides it needs the capability.

The service would be better off buying a commercially available aircraft that could be adapted to military use, he said. The study mentions the Cessna Caravan, Pilatus PC-6 or PZL M-28 as survivable and cost-effective aircraft that could be modified for use as an assault airlifter.

The study also suggests that precision airdrop and unmanned aerial vehicles could be used to provide COIN airlift.

The Air Force is already using precision airdrop in Iraq and Afghanistan, but using UAVs for airlift is a vision for the future rather than a near-term option, Mueller said.