The Senate has made a case that the Air Force and Army, which have been sharing the C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft program, should begin to part company on the project. The Army sought $157 million in Fiscal 2008 for JCA work. Senators, in their 2008 defense authorization bill, refused those funds to the Army and instead voted to hand them over to USAF, along with the Air Force’s own requested amount. The Senate argued it makes more sense for the Air Force-by itself-to take over and manage fixed-wing airlift of this type. The House version of the authorization bill, however, contained no such provision. The two sides duked it out in a conference in search of a mutually acceptable compromise. The C-27J Spartan is a small airlifter. The Air Force plans to use it for a variety of active and Air National Guard missions that do not require an aircraft the size of the C-130J. Its list of missions includes transport of small Army forces. The Army, however, wants to acquire its own fleet of Spartans so as to possess an autonomous airlift capability. These aircraft would replace the Army’s old C-12 and C-23 transports, which had very limited range and capability. The airlift provided by these systems has been justified as being “organic” to the Army mission-in effect, a direct adjunct of the land warfare, the Army’s principal role.
The Army and Air Force have been squabbling like the Honeymooners over the C-27. The Army claims that it needs the Spartan ASAP, to fulfill the short range airlift mission in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force says that it has more pressing acquisitions needs, and -paraphrasing here- will get around to buying the JCA in a few years. At the root of the problem is the archaic Key West agreement, which has guided military aircraft procurement for the better part of five decades and badly needs to go away. Defense Tech:
Because of the Key West Agreement, the Army and Air Force shares the air lift function, the Army intra-theater, and the Air Force inter-theater. However, in today’s non-linear battlefield, it’s difficult to tell where to draw the “theater” line. So when the Army initiated the FCA, the Air Force felt compelled to protect its turf in the air lift business by joining the program, and then delayed the program by dragging its feet on its portion of the joint requirement. I think it was instructive to note that, only after the Army has announced the request for proposal for the FCA, did the Air Force start making noise about its similar requirements, yet did not have its set of requirement ready right away. What was the Air Force rep on the JROC doing? Isn’t it his job to tell the Air Force before the Army announces its RFP?
As soldiers move out of their FOBs and into smaller platoon and company sized firebases as part of the surge strategy, one could see the Army’s point here. Supplying grunts via tactical airlift is still safer than convoy ops, even with the diminished IED threat. And the existing fleet of C-130s and C-17s is busy enough with inter-theater operations. So if this drama plays out per the Senate’s direction, the Army will have to wait a few more years for an aircraft that they need now. Meanwhile, Bulgaria–unencumbered by such a monster of military bureaucracy–just went ahead and bought five of the damn things last month.
