The recent scrapping in Afghanistan of 16 Alenia C-27A Spartans, which were meant to serve as the core airlift fleet of the Afghan air force, has refocused attention on the equally problematic saga of C-27J procurement by the Pentagon. The Department of Defense (DoD) has bought only 21 of the 78 C-27Js that it planned for the U.S Air Force and Army. These are still flying in the U.S., but not on missions for which they were originally intended.
The C-27As were former Italian air force G222s that the DoD purchased from Alenia in September 2008 for $287 million as replacements for the Afghan air force’s four Antonov An-32 airlifters. The 30-year-old aircraft were said by NATO’s Air Training Command Afghanistan to be “well-suited” for the country’s mountainous terrain and limited road infrastructure, carrying payloads of up to 20,000 pounds into airstrips as short as 3,000 feet. The contract included refurbishment, modernization and support of the aircraft, which had been stored at Pisa airbase after they were replaced in Italian service by new-production C-27Js.
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