C-27J Performing Well in Afghanistan
I've posted previously about the difficulties of delivering cargo to remote regions of Afghanistan, which directly supported the need for the program that became the Joint Cargo Aircraft, filled by the C-27J Spartan, which the Air Force has now canceled, causing the Army to once again rely on contract air.
As it turns out, some of the first C-27Js the Air Force bought are in Afghanistan in direct support of Army troops, and are getting rave reviews. According to a spokesman for the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, as quoted in an article at DoD Buzz:
Maj. Craig Jayson, executive officer for 3rd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, 25th CAB, says with the C-27J relieving his unit’s Chinooks, the unit has the opportunity to fly more missions to forward operating bases which the C-27J does not have access to.
“We can focus on picking up personnel and equipment that are lower priority and fulfill requests that are normally canceled due to lack of resources,” said Jayson. “Overall, the C-27J increases our flexibility and ability to support more customers in a single day.”
An increase in C-27J missions also decrease the costs associated with CH-47 missions as well.
“The hourly operational cost of a resupply mission using the Chinook is more than $7,500 an hour for the CH-47D and $9,000 an hour for the CH-47F,” said Jayson.
Based off Landrum’s calculations, the U.S. Army has saved $30 million by conducting missions with the C-27J instead of the CH-47 Chinook. When it comes to relieving the CH-47 Chinook with fixed wing assets, the C-27J seems to be the best choice over other fixed-wing options.
“The C-27J has all of the benefits of a fixed wing aircraft such as speed, altitude, payload capacity and range, yet also possesses the ability to conduct many mission sets similar to rotary winged cargo aircraft,” said Sgt. Maj. Ronald Graves, 25th CAB operations sergeant major.
Adding to the list of the C-27J’s benefits, Graves said the aircraft can operate in adverse weather and with limited visibility. Also the C-27J can land on a 2,400-foot dirt strip as opposed to the 3,000 feet a C-130 Hercules requires. Perhaps the biggest advantage the C-27J currently offers the Army is the fact it is tactically controlled by 25th CAB commander Col. Frank Tate. The tactical control gives him the flexibility to provide immediate support to soldiers on the battlefield.
“This relationship allows for quick and dynamic tasking, when required, which greatly increases our ability to deliver nearly anything, anywhere, in support of the soldier in the fight,” said Graves.
The best benefits appear to come from direct tactical control of Air Force aircraft by the Army aviation unit (shades of the WWII Army Air Corps??). Whether those same benefits could be realized if the aircraft in question were C-130s rather than C-27s seems open to debate, but clearly the unit finds the aircraft valuable, and it allows the Army to focus scarce (and expensive) Chinook blade hours to areas that can only be serviced by rotary wing.
Since I spent a lot of time flying Chinook ring routes to places that could have been serviced by STOL or other small cargo aircraft -- had they been available -- I can certainly see the benefit.
It looks like it's too late to save the JCA concept for the Army though, despite the report card from Afghanistan, unless there's a business case based on the demonstrated cost savings that says the Army should buy back the C-27s the Air Force wants to divest ...
