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C-27J is first brand-new Air Guard plane

No hand-me-downs this time from the big Air Force.

The Air National Guard is getting C-27J Spartans straight from the assembly line in 2010. It will be the first time the Air Guard has owned and operated brand-new aircraft.

The first two C-27Js are already being used at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., to train air crews. The rest of the 38-aircraft fleet will be delivered to six Air Guard bases, said Lt. Col. Chris Beckman, aviation planning and executing chief for the Air Guard.

The propeller-driven airlift plane will augment the Air Force’s C-130 Hercules fleet, Beckman said.

The C-27J resembles a C-130J — the newest airframe to be added to the Air National Guard’s inventory — but is about half its size. Beckman estimates about 350 people will be trained to fly the new plane, which is manned by a four-person crew of two pilots and two loadmasters.

The C-27J is capable of landing with a 2,000-foot or less ground roll on an unimproved runway, offloading cargo and taking off from that same runway at a field elevation of 6,000 feet in 95-degree weather, said Lt. Col. Joe Brophy, a C-130J pilot from the Maryland Guard who is working on the C-27J program and will be one of the initial instructors for the new aircraft.

The C-27J’s ability to perform in austere conditions makes it well suited for missions in mountainous Afghanistan and will keep more convoys off Afghanistan’s dangerous roads, Brophy said.

“These airplanes are going to be very helpful in offsetting those needs and allow delivery [of supplies] via air,” he said.

The C-27J is the culmination of separate Air Force and Army initiatives dating back to 2005. The Army was seeking an aircraft that would conduct time-sensitive, mission-critical cargo and personnel airlift and relieve the stress on its C-23 Sherpa and C-12 Huron planes, and CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

The project evolved into the Joint Cargo Aircraft project, but the decision was made in April to transfer the program solely to the Air Force, Beckman said.

The C-27J will ease the pressure on the C-130 fleet as well as the Army’s Chinooks, Beckman said.

“The C-27J will give us an ability to operate in some more places than we have with the C-130,” he said. “It does land in shorter distances and take off in shorter distances ... and it also occupies less space on the ground, so we’ll be able to get in and out of airfields with very little ramp space.”