Air Force News, news from Iraq - Air Force Times

6 Guard units hoping for a Spartan lift

The fate of the 110th Fighter Wing rests on the shoulders of a Spartan.

The 110th and five other Air National Guard units are staking their future on the C-27 Spartan, or Joint Cargo Aircraft, a plane with an uncertain future of its own.

The 110th, flying out of Battle Creek, Mich., will lose its A-10 Warthog fighters in four years to the reorganization of military facilities mandated by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission of 2005.

But instead of closing the unit, the Air Force decided to assign Battle Creek the JCA: a light-duty cargo aircraft designed to serve both the Army and the Air Force.

“In my opinion, the case is very plain that this is the right aircraft,” said Rep. Mark Schauer, a Democrat representing Battle Creek. “Having a flying mission is important to the jobs in our community.”

The 110th and five other Air Guard units are to get 24 of the 78 planes in the joint program. The other units are in Maryland, Connecticut, North Dakota, Mississippi and Ohio, according to draft Air Guard planning documents obtained by Air Force Times.

All are relying on the C-27 to maintain a flying mission that otherwise would be lost.

They should have the planes by 2013. In the meantime, four of the six units will fly C-21s, military versions of the Lear Jet 35A business jet.

A separate order of C-27s has been placed by Special Operations Command.

The process of getting the JCAs to the Air Guard has seen some turbulence. In October, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee stripped $32.1 million in JCA funding out of the 2009 defense budget.

The money was eventually put back into the final bill, but some of the subcommittee’s criticisms still resonate.

“The Air Force is neither able to articulate an employment plan for the Joint Cargo Aircraft nor explain the roles and missions of the aircraft,” the panel’s report reads.

Last year’s criticisms worried some relying on the planes to meet their Air Guard needs.

“The mission really appeared to be at risk,” said Rep. Joe Courtney, a Connecticut Democrat. “The last thing anyone wants is to be in the position where you’re relying on a weapons program that’s volatile.”

Defensive action?

Some defense watchers say the Air Force’s involvement in the JCA program is more about stopping the Army from encroaching on its airlift mission than about needing the aircraft.

“The Army seems to like it a lot and the Air Force has shown some ambivalence,” Schauer said.

While the Air Force has been less than clear on how it could use the plane, the states for which the planes are destined have an eye toward domestic airlift if a state’s governor declares a state of emergency.

In late February, Joint U.S. Transportation Command Chief Gen. Duncan J. McNabb testified to Congress on the viability of the JCA.

JCA “kind of fills a very nice niche of the direct support to the Army,” McNabb said Feb. 25. “That’s where they’re planning to use it.”

McNabb described little of how the Air Force specifically will use the JCA.