JCA Confusion-Penny wise & pound foolish!

[GZR_Sactargets]

From AF Daily Report 8 May 09

JCA Moves from Army to Air Force: Among the program decisions revealed in the Fiscal 2010 budget was the Office of the Secretary of Defense's decision to take the Army out of the C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft program and put it solely under the Air Force. The Army already had purchased 11 airframes and spent $280 million on the effort to field aircraft to replace its elderly C-23 Sherpas. The 2010 Air Force budget includes eight JCAs, with a total price tag of $328.5 million, including $9.4 million in R&D. OSD also slashed the total size of the JCA buy from 78 to 38. DOD Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday that OSD is looking to "exploit some synergy" in the Air Force for the intratheather mission between the JCA and the C-130. "They have in some cases similar capabilities," Hale said. As a result, the Army must now work out how to divest the training and equipping piece of the program, as well as the 11 airframes it had already purchased. "Where we are, at this juncture, is that the Air Force leadership, the Army leadership, and the Air Guard and the National Guard are still working out the implications of how to affect this transfer," Army Lt. Gen. Edgar Stanton III, the Army's military deputy for budget matters, said Thursday. Issues such as training, manning, and facilities are still being discussed since the Army just found out about the OSD decision a few weeks ago, Stanton said. "There has not yet been resolution," he added.

[MIKE JG]

So with 40 less airframes, something tells me that a lot of the ANG units that were "waiting" on the C-27J as they were promised, are now going to cease to exist.

[ricktk]

A lot of C-23's are going to keep on soldiering, what?

[Victory103]

Thanks for the update, there goes my plan to transition to fixed-wing!

[GZR_Sactargets]

Thanks for the update, there goes my plan to transition to fixed-wing!

Standby! Congress gets to play with it in the appropriations bill too.

[reconmercs]

does anyone know what actual role the C-27 will fill in the Air Force seems like it'd be a plane looking for a mission rather than a plane to fulfill a mission...

[GZR_Sactargets]

It was supposed to replace the Sherpa for the ARMY. That did pretty much what the C-7 Caribou did. When the C-7 came in there was a urinary debate about who would operate it. The AF won. I guess this move is similar. The AF will operate it and serve the Army needs.

[GZR_Sactargets]

From AF Daily Report 11 May 09

JCA Requirement Is 78: Even before the May 7 release of the 2010 defense budget proposal, word had leaked that the Pentagon planned to cut the C-27 Joint Cargo Aircraft from 78 to 38 aircraft, prompting Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) at the May 5 House Armed Services airland panel hearing to ask what analysis had been done prior to this reduction in the "Army's stated need?" Air National Guard director Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt III said he was "not aware of any other subsequent studies" that deviated from the Joint Requirements Oversight Council-approved 78 aircraft. Both the Air Guard and Army Guard were slated to operate the C-27, but the Pentagon also shifted the program—and the last-tactical-mile mission—from a joint Army-Air Force effort to an Air Force one. Still, Wyatt told the lawmakers, "The question is not necessarily the color of service flying the airplane, but ... how do you sustain the requirement." He continued, "In my opinion, you have to have 78 airplanes, as the JROC study indicated, to sustain the number of airplanes [16 to 18] anticipated to be deployed continuously in theater." The Army wanted the C-27 to replace its elderly C-23 Sherpas, which Maj. Gen. Raymond Carpenter, acting deputy Army Guard director, said should last only another five years. He also told the panel that the Army Guard uses the C-23 for homeland missions, as well, so "we've got five years to solve this problem."