WHATEVER HAPPENED TO // C-27J JOINT CARGO AIRCRAFT
SPARTAN
When the US Army
decided to upgrade its air
transport capabilities, it
fueled a long-lived dispute
with the Air Force about
tactical airlift. David Willis
reviews the shifting plans
for the C-27J Spartan
O
perations in Iraq and
Afghanistan highlighted
shortfalls in the US Army’s
fleet of Short C-23B/B+
Sherpa light transports.
Although the aircraft proved
useful supplying outposts in a timely
manner in-theater, the unpressurised
aircraft had difficulty operating at high
weights in the mountainous regions of
Afghanistan. The service also needed
a new aircraft to support the newly
formed Weapons of Mass Destruction
Civil Support Teams in the US, able
to carry the vehicles they operated in
response to incidents across the country.
Between 23 and 37 Future Cargo
Aircraft (FCA) were required by the
US Army and Army National Guard
to replace C-23B/B+s. The FCA
requirement was assessed during late
2004 and go-ahead was granted by the
Department of Defense in March 2005.
In September 2005 the USAF proposed
to develop its own Light Cargo Aircraft
(LCA) to meet intra-theater airlift needs.
The similarity of both requirements
resulted in the merging of the
projects, under the instigation of the
Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics, Kenneth J Krieg,
in December 2005 as the Joint Cargo
Aircraft (JCA), led by the Army. The Vice
Chief of Staffs of the two services signed
94 May 2023 // www.Key.Aero
WARS
an agreement in June 2006 to develop
acquisition strategies for JCA. The full
requirement was stated to be 75 for the
Army and 70 for the Air Force in a $6bn
program, although full life-cycle costs over
20 to 25 years was estimated at $12bn.
JCA competition
Three teams were established to
compete for JCA. Team JCA was created
by Raytheon and EADS CASA North
America to offer the CN-235 and C-295,
later focusing on the latter transport. L-3
Communications Systems Group, Alenia
North America and Boeing Integrated
Defense Systems offered the C-27J
Spartan, with logistical and engineering
support to be provided by Global Military
Aircraft Systems of Mississippi, a 51:49
joint venture between Alenia and L-3.
Lockheed Martin put forward the C-130J
Hercules. Lockheed Martin had partnered
with Alenia in Lockheed Martin Tactical
Transport Systems for a decade since 1996
to develop the C-27J – the ‘J’ suffix was
adopted to highlight commonality with
the C-130J. The agreement dissolved when
Lockheed offered its own design for FCA.
Bids were submitted spring 2006.
The Early User Survey (EUS), held to
demonstrate compatibility with JCA
requirements, was undertaken with
the C-27J in November 2006 at Pope
AFB, South Carolina, Maxwell AFB and
Above: The Army still
Fort Rucker in Alabama. The same
operates seven C-27Js
month the C-130J was eliminated; it with the USASOC
was reported as having failed to meet Flight Company based
the required navigation capabilities. at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina, to support
the training of
Enter the Spartan special forces
On June 13, 2007, it was announced US Army
the C-27J had been selected. Team JCA
protested the decision to the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) eight days
later. While both the C-295 and C-27A had
been rated equal in terms of technical
and performance criteria, according to
Raytheon’s Vice-President for JCA, Jim
Hvizd, C-295 acquisition was 15% lower,
as were life-cycle costs (substantiated
in the GAO report). However, the GAO
stated on September 27 it “could not
find any basis to sustain the protest”
and upheld the original decision.
An indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity
contract was awarded to L-3, for 55 aircraft
(all but one for the Army). According to the
Army it was for up to 78 aircraft (including
24 for the Air Force), worth $2.04bn, to
be fielded by mid-June 2012. The Air
Force said it was for 40 C-27Js (32 for the
Army) for delivery between Fiscal Years
2007 to 2011. Behind the confusion was a
long running inter-service dispute about
command and control of the intra-theater
airlift role and mission responsibilities.
The Army wanted a transport able to
move supplies ‘the last tactical miles’, to
provide responsive aerial sustainment
and critical direct support of units in
forward areas. But the USAF saw this
as infringing on its mission to organize,
train and equip to perform airlift for
all Department of Defense agencies.
(Years earlier, when the former Air Force
Chief of Staff, General John Jumper, was
asked about FCA, his reply was: “You
don’t need to go out and buy yourself
an air force — we’ve got one.”)
Supporters for both camps fought for
control of the program’s budget in the
various Congressional committees. In both
Fiscal Years 2007 and 2008 authorizers and
appropriators transferred funding from
the Army budget for the program to the
Air Force. The 2009 Defense Authorization
Act supported the procurement of
seven C-27Js for the Army and funds
for Research, Development, Testing and
Evaluation (RDT&E), but deleted advanced
procurement funds and around 40% of
RDT&E funds from the Air Force request.
The first C-27J JCA completed a
20-minute maiden flight from Caselle in
Turin, Italy, on June 16, 2008, the start
of a planned 24 flight test program
over two months. It then went to
Waco, Texas, where L-3 integrated its
mission equipment, including self-
defense subsystems, communications
and mission avionics. The aircraft was
delivered on September 25, 2008,
with a second following the next
month, and training classes on the
type began at Robins AFB, Georgia.
From around the 14th aircraft (the
number changed regularly), the C-27J was
due to be built in the US. Alenia North
America had signed a Memorandum
of Understanding with Boeing in 2006
for a final assembly plant at Cecil Field
in Jacksonville, Florida. The companies
Above: Logically the failed to agree on the business aspects
C-27J should have of the plan, however, and discussions on
become the C-27B
once selected as the project ended in February 2009.
the JCA, the earlier In April 2009 Secretary of Defense Robert
C-27A having served Gates agreed to give sole control of the
with the USAF from
Panama. It retained JCA program to the USAF. With pressure
the C-27J designation, on budgets increasing, the service
however, reportedly reduced the number to be acquired to
saving £1m rewriting
the technical manuals 38 in FY10, ordering eight (to 21 aircraft)
US Army in June 2010 for delivery in 2012. The
C-27Js would be operated in squadrons
of four by the Air National Guard.
Under a deal with the Army they would
be made available to provide ‘direct
support’, on-call to fulfil the service’s
urgent air transport needs. The concept
was tested in Iraq from October-December
2009 – albeit with C-130s, as the only two
C-27Js delivered were still under test – and
was considered to be a success. It was
Below: Two-thirds of followed by what turned out to be an
the C-27Js acquired 11-month deployment of two C-27Js to
eventually entered
service with the US Kandahar, Afghanistan, from August 2011.
Coast Guard. This
former Mississippi
Air National Guard
The end
aircraft was delivered A reduction in defense spending
from temporary sealed the C-27J’s fate. The USAF
storage at Davis- announced on January 26, 2012, that
Monthan AFB, Arizona,
to become the 11th it would not only end the JCA program
for the service USAF but retire the transport, five of which
had then to be delivered, stating its
niche capability was too expensive
to sustain alongside its other airlifters
in light of budgetary pressures.
On October 25, 2013, seven were
allocated to Army Special Operations
Command (USASOC) to replace
CASA C-41As with the USASOC Flight
Company. The first was handed over
on March 18, 2014, at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina, primarily to support
the US Army John F Kennedy Special
Warfare Center and School there and
its Military Free Fall School at the US
Army Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona.
The other 14 were coveted by the US
Coast Guard, which wanted them as
medium-range surveillance aircraft for
operation on the west coast, saving $1.3bn
on the purchase of new aircraft. Seven
were sought by the US Forest Service for
conversion as fire tankers. A compromise
was reached in December 2013, whereby
the Forest Service received former Coast
Guard HC-130s. After all the arguments
between the Army and Air Force over JCA
and the provision of intra-theater airlift,
the ultimate winner from the program
became the US Coast Guard, which
received 14 nearly new HC-27Js. CAJ
The C-27J entered service with the
135th and 164th Airlift Squadrons
(AS) of the Maryland and Ohio
ANG and the 153rd Air Refueling
Squadron in Mississippi. These
four belonged to the 135th AS,
179th Wing, based at Mansfield
SSgt Joseph Harwood/
US Air Force
www.Key.Aero // May 2023 95

DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINE
OF AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY
BY DAVID AXE
STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD
W
ith missiles, drones and manned aircraft
all competing for room, the airspace
over a warzone can get crowded. It’s a
problem the US military’s fringe-science agency
is trying to solve with artificial intelligence.
In 2021, the US Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) launched Air Space Total
Awareness for Rapid Tactical Execution (ASTARTE).
The aim: to develop AI for airspace deconfliction.
It’s a complex bit of software, but its function is
simple: to plot flightpaths for drones and manned
aircraft that keep them safely away from friendly
and enemy missiles and artillery. It’s a job that, at
present, is largely manual, with scores of battle
managers in front of screens at air operations
centers keeping artillery and aircraft out of each
other’s way. ASTARTE could do it faster and better.
Writing in a recent issue of NATO’s Joint Air
Power Competence Center Journal, Italian army
lieutenant colonel Livio Rossetti described
ASTARTE as “a project that, if fielded, could
radically change the current concept of air-space
management and make a difference in planning
and conducting future battle strategies.”
With better deconfliction, US and allied forces
could fire more artillery, launch more drones and
conduct more air strikes than they can safely
do now. DARPA tested a prototype of ASTARTE
at the US Army’s Mission Command Battle
Lab at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, in late 2022.
Current
Before and after the
introduction of ASTARTE
DARPA artist’s concept
96 May 2023 // www.Key.Aero
It worked. ASTARTE “successfully deconflicted
friendly missiles, artillery fire and manned and
unmanned aircraft while avoiding enemy fires
in a simulated battle in contested airspace.”
The job is harder than it might appear. DARPA
reported in late February that it had limited that
initial, computer-based test to airspace over an
army division, a volume 62 miles by 62 miles across
and 18,000 feet high.
That airspace had to accommodate the division’s
scores of rotorcraft and hundreds of large and
small drones, plus the same division’s rocket-
and artillery-fire, as well as any supporting US
Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps and allied
aircraft and missiles, not to mention incoming
enemy fire. And the problem is getting worse
as drones and small munitions proliferate.
“Managing airspace in the near future will become
more complex than it is today,” Rossetti wrote.
The process of using ASTARTE begins with
army planners, who upload strategic fire
missions—that is, outgoing rocket and artillery
barrages—so that everyone else knows which
slices of air space aren’t safe for aircraft and
when to avoid them. Air planners then ask the
system’s AI to plot paths around the barrages.
The calculations get complicated when the
enemy starts shooting back. US and allied radars
and space sensors can warn the AI of incoming fire,
but to work as advertised, ASTARTE would need
Future
ASTARTE
enables
operation of manned
and unmanned aircraft,
missiles and artillery fire in the
contested airspace above an army
division DARPA artist’s concept
to plot new, safe flightpaths in mere seconds and
swiftly relay them to pilots and drone operators.
Every indication is that the AI is up to
the task. “The demonstration showed that
complex route alternatives could be created
in seconds, leveraging available permissive
airspace to avoid airspace where conflicts
would potentially occur,” said Dr Paul
Zablocky, the ASTARTE program manager.
As a bonus, the system should be flexible
enough to fold into its calculations whatever
sensors allied forces might bring to the fight. “The
current situation, in NATO contains a plethora
of different systems and sensors that do not
guarantee an adequate level of interoperability,”
Rossetti wrote. “ASTARTE promises to solve this
issue by adopting new algorithmic solutions.”
Better yet, ASTARTE could serve as the
foundation for even more capable AI, because
the deconfliction system “forms a foundation
of artificial-intelligence-enabled services that
will interact with other service-component
AI tools,” according to Zablocky. It’s not hard
to imagine spin-off algorithms that could
help drones and manned fighters thread
through air defenses over enemy airspace.
Following successful testing in a virtual
space, DARPA aims to test ASTARTE in a live
environment—with real drones, manned aircraft
and artillery – in the summer of 2023. CAJ
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The two most advanced fighters in the
USAF’s inventory: the F-22A Raptor and
F-35A Lightning II USAF/Lt Sam Eckholm
FRONTLINE FIGHTERS
Spartan Deltas
A year after the Hellenic Air Force’s first Dassault
Rafales touched down on Greek soil, we visit
Tanagra Air Base to find out how these delta-
wing warriors have settled into their new home
EDITORIAL & DESIGN
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98 May 2023 // www.Key.Aero
From the fourth-gen F-16 to the new fifth-gen F-35A, the USAF boasts a hugely varied
force of frontline fighter aircraft. CAJ explores the current posture of the air arm’s
Entering the Old North
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