Strategic and Tactical Airlift
The Air Force’s largest transports are the rival C-5 Galaxy and the C-17 Globemaster III. Procurement of the latter aircraft has finally ended, much later than Air Staff planners wanted. Told to absorb 43 more C-17s than it requested – ending production at 223 airframes for U.S. use, including one already lost in a crash – the Air Force has planned for two C-5A units to convert to the C-17. A modernization program continues for the C-5, often a cantankerous machine but much loved by airmen who call it “Fred” – a loving acronym for “fantastic, ridiculous, economic disaster” – frequently expressed using a different f-word.
Under its current mandate, the Air Force plans by summer 2016 to have an 89-plane fleet consisting of 37 C-5As and 52 C-5Ms. The re-engined C-5M, with new avionics and interior, is proceeding well. According to builder Lockheed, the C-5M has a 58 percent greater climb rate to an initial cruise altitude that is 38 percent higher than the current C-5.
A U.S. Air Force C-27J Spartan assigned to the 702nd Expeditionary Airlift Squadron taxis after landing at a remote airfield in Qalat, Afghanistan. The C-27J, operated by a joint Army and Air National Guard crew, was delivering supplies and troops to Forward Operating Base Apache, Afghanistan. The C-27J gives U.S. military troops a unique short takeoff and landing capability, providing access to airstrips otherwise unreachable by fixed-wing aircraft, but is facing cancellation. U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Jeffery Allen
Several versions of the C-130J Super Hercules are performing well in tactical airlift and special operations missions, and it is currently the “most built” U.S. military aircraft, with production of 36 units per year; however, an avionics upgrade for older C-130s is still struggling with scheduling and technical issues.
The C-27J Spartan tactical airlifter, also called the Joint Cargo Aircraft, has become a source of friction between the Air Force and the Air National Guard. Now that the National Guard has a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff – currently filled by Gen. Craig R. McKinley, an airman – it has more clout in Washington than ever before and it wants the Air Force to complete its programmed acquisition of 38 of the C-27Js. Schwartz, however, would like to end production at 21 airframes and would be willing to return the program to the Army, where it originated. A deployment by two C-27Js to Afghanistan in 2011 is widely considered as having been premature and Guard squadrons have been slow to integrate the aircraft into their operations.
Nuclear Systems
The B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress bomber force, together with the Air Force’s 450 LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), now belong to the Air Force’s Global Strike Command. The B-1B Lancer remains in Air Combat Command because it does not have a nuclear mission. All three bomber types are increasingly expensive to operate, especially the B-1B, and a new bomber would cut operating costs considerably.
The T-6A Texan II and T-1A Jayhawk fleet is healthy and cost-effective, but the Air Force appears to be stalled in its T-X program to replace the aging T-38C Talon advanced trainer. Several trainers are potential candidates, among them the Alenia Aermacchi M-346, Korea Aerospace Industries/Lockheed Martin T-50 Golden Eagle, and BAE Systems Hawk Advanced Jet Training System (AJTS), which enjoyed visibility when two jet-black Hawk T. Mk2s performed a road tour of U.S. training bases in 2011. But an expected request for proposals for a T-38C replacement has not yet materialized. If T-X does move ahead, it will replace Talon airframes and the simulators and training materials associated with them.
The Air Force has purchased a handful of Army-type UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters to replace a few HH-60G Pave Hawks that until recently were assigned to non-rescue duties, freeing up these HH-60Gs for combat rescue work and allowing the service to postpone, for a time longer, its long-standing quest for a new rescue rotorcraft.
Members of the 54th Helicopter Squadron land a UH-1N “Huey” on the tarmac as part of a routine flying mission, July 26, 2011, at Minot Air Force Base, N.D. Replacements for the UH-1Ns don’t appear to be on the horizon. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jesse Lopez
A source close to Schwartz said that the service’s longstanding Common Vertical Lift Support Platform (CVLSP), intended to replace aging UH-1N Twin Huey helicopters, is “dead on arrival,” referring to the arrival of fiscal year 2012. The Air Force has 62 UH-1Ns. Air Force Space Command uses 25 to transport security forces defending the intercontinental missile silos in America’s northern heartland, in the mission called “nuclear weapons security response” by the Pentagon. Three other commands operate 18 UH-1Ns in half a dozen locations, and the Air Force District of Washington at Joint Base Andrews, Md., uses 19 to transport senators and representatives and to evacuate them in an emergency.
Because of their age (many have fiscal year 1969 serial numbers), the UH-1Ns are costly to operate and difficult to maintain. The UH-1N fleet is showing its age with fatigue-related cracks in tail booms and recently underwent its second tail boom replacement to meet minimal safety standards.
Yet a replacement now seems out of reach. “We didn’t give CVLSP a high priority when we had money to spend,” the source said. “Now there’s no money.” The Air Force recently acquired a handful of Huey IIs, also called HH-1Hs, used at Fort Rucker, Ala., to train Air Force helicopter pilots. Because these are single-engine variants, they are not potential candidates for CVLSP, which requires two engines. The service would still like to acquire something like the Eurocopter UH-72A Lakota, which is faring well in the U.S. Army, or the AgustaWestland AW139M, which has twice been demonstrated to defense officials in Washington.
This article was first published in Defense: Winter 2012 Review Edition.