Status of RAAF STOL transport

[phreeky]

The Spartan looked good at Avalon, though I missed its flying display.

YOU MISSED OUT! Absolutely awesome display, doing things transport aircraft shouldn't be seen doing, and landing in distances as short as I've ever seen a Caribou land. Very impressive display.

Of course I have no idea how it compares with other aircraft re min/max loads, speed, and STOL performance with various loads, but it certainly seems the goods.

 

[RubiconNZ]

Yeah I figure pretty soon the after the US Army announces their intentions that the RAAF will too, looking forward to a decision, I agree its obvious after recent ops tempo that more Chinnooks are need, six more sounds nice to me.

 

[old faithful]

Gonna miss the `bou,s. My first experience with them was jumping from them at Saltash,then watching them land on the DZ! getting back in and doing it again. I have never seen a more versitile aircraft for Australian conditions,and i hope its replacements will have nearly as good rough field perfomance. i have been part of 30 odd diggers pushing one out of a muddy patch on a drop zone,and then watched in awe as it took of for a very short run....they are/were incredible. the toyota troopy of the air!!

 

[rjmaz1]

Personally im not a fan of Australia getting the C-27J

Its running costs will be lower than the C-130J's, but not low enough to justify its introduction. The intial startup costs and ongoing servicing of the C-27J's would offset the reduction in running costs.

Also the C-27J can operate off shorter runways but with a lighter weight. A fully loaded C-27J requires a longer runway than an empty C-130J. So if you put say 5 tonnes of cargo in both aircraft that weight would reduce the performance more on the C-27J.

Running C-17's for long distance airlift, C-130J's for in theatre airlift and the Chinooks for small front line duties would be just as cost effective. The Chinooks and C-130J's can perform all the missions that the C-27J could. Too much overlap in my opinion.

Instead of buying 14 C-27J's i would take the option of an extra C-17, buy a couple extra C-130J's, and upgrade all our Chinooks.

Buying C-27J's wont be bad but money could be spent slightly more effeciently.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Personally im not a fan of Australia getting the C-27J

Its running costs will be lower than the C-130J's, but not low enough to justify its introduction. The intial startup costs and ongoing servicing of the C-27J's would offset the reduction in running costs.

Also the C-27J can operate off shorter runways but with a lighter weight. A fully loaded C-27J requires a longer runway than an empty C-130J. So if you put say 5 tonnes of cargo in both aircraft that weight would reduce the performance more on the C-27J.

Buying C-27J's wont be bad but money could be spent slightly more effeciently.

I'm not so sure you're entirely correct with this post mate.

I SAW the C-27J take off at Avalon (before I left) and it took off in an AWFULLY short length of runway. Sure it was empty but it was FAR shorter than RAAF's C-130J took off empty in a "combat launch".

The running costs will be cheaper, as will the up front acquisition costs. Priced any CH-47F's lately? I'm not so sure they'd be cheaper than a C-27 and they certainly can't compete with the range, payload or cruising speed...

CH-47's are indispensible I agree and I would love to see Army acquire at least another 6x airframes, but would they contribute more to ADF's overall Tactrans capability? I'm not so sure...

In any case ADF is certainly not rushing into this acquisition, so if they DO decide to acquire it, I guess we can take some reassurance from that, that the C-27's (or whatever is chosen) are worth it...

 

[phreeky]

I'm not so sure you're entirely correct with this post mate.

I SAW the C-27J take off at Avalon (before I left) and it took off in an AWFULLY short length of runway. Sure it was empty but it was FAR shorter than RAAF's C-130J took off empty in a "combat launch".

I also saw the very short land, stop, and take off demos it did. Even with no heavy loads and just full of troops + basic gear, my first thought is how quick a deployment could hit the ground on a very ghetto runway on a close island nation, as an example - I'm not sure of the speed difference between a C-27 and a CH-47, but would I be right in assuming the C-27 is much faster and could get there a lot quicker?

In any case ADF is certainly not rushing into this acquisition, so if they DO decide to acquire it, I guess we can take some reassurance from that, that the C-27's (or whatever is chosen) are worth it...

How long can they leave this decision? Are old airframes like the Caribous good to keep on kicking along for a while yet?

Also, where do you think they'd be based? Amberly? Didn't they just move all the Caribous (or will be) to Townsville?

 

[Aussie Digger]

I also saw the very short land, stop, and take off demos it did. Even with no heavy loads and just full of troops + basic gear, my first thought is how quick a deployment could hit the ground on a very ghetto runway on a close island nation, as an example - I'm not sure of the speed difference between a C-27 and a CH-47, but would I be right in assuming the C-27 is much faster and could get there a lot quicker?

Yes, the C-27 possesses much greater cruising speed, payload and range capability advantages over any helicopter and even tiltrotors. What it can't do is land or take off vertically...

How long can they leave this decision? Are old airframes like the Caribous good to keep on kicking along for a while yet?

Also, where do you think they'd be based? Amberly? Didn't they just move all the Caribous (or will be) to Townsville?

The Caribou's are funded to keep flying until 2010. Occum or Magoo could probably detail it further, but I understand RAAF can keep them flying for quite a while, it's just that it becomes uneconomical to do so after a certain point.

The Caribou's are based permanently at RAAF Amberley. They deploy to RAAF Townsville and numerous other places on a regular basis however. I'd expect the C-27 (or whatever) would probably remain there.

 

[Todjaeger]

Personally im not a fan of Australia getting the C-27J

Its running costs will be lower than the C-130J's, but not low enough to justify its introduction. The intial startup costs and ongoing servicing of the C-27J's would offset the reduction in running costs.

Also the C-27J can operate off shorter runways but with a lighter weight. A fully loaded C-27J requires a longer runway than an empty C-130J. So if you put say 5 tonnes of cargo in both aircraft that weight would reduce the performance more on the C-27J.

Running C-17's for long distance airlift, C-130J's for in theatre airlift and the Chinooks for small front line duties would be just as cost effective. The Chinooks and C-130J's can perform all the missions that the C-27J could. Too much overlap in my opinion.

Instead of buying 14 C-27J's i would take the option of an extra C-17, buy a couple extra C-130J's, and upgrade all our Chinooks.

Buying C-27J's wont be bad but money could be spent slightly more effeciently.

Personally, I think comparing the lift performance of the C-27J to the C-130J-30 is incorrect. The C-27J is suggested as a replacement for the DHC-4 Caribou which is no longer in production. What I think would be a better comparison would be to see how those two match up. I believe that the Caribou has better (shorter) rough field performance to take off, but also has a smaller cargo capacity and shorter range. Not to mention, the max load size is smaller I believe. What I'm not sure about is the effect on operations the increased size/weight of the C-27J will have. One of the advantages some small/light aircraft have is that they can be manhandled around. I'm not sure that's feasable with the C-27J.

-Cheers

 

[RLP]

If you get the C-27J, I don't think you will be doing too much manhandling of the aircraft - it is quite heavy. I believe that the basic empty weight of the aircraft, no fuel, freight, or crew, is around 38,500 lb.

 

[AGRA]

The 'Bous are based at both Amberley and Townsville. Townsville has DET B of 38 Sqn. The program to replace them, Air 8000 Phase 2, is called the Light Tactical Fixed Wing Aircraft and is to be considered along with what to do with the C-130Hs left over after the C-17A acqusition we are currently looking at inservice circa 2011-12 for the new LTFWA.

 

[rjmaz1]

I SAW the C-27J take off at Avalon (before I left) and it took off in an AWFULLY short length of runway. Sure it was empty but it was FAR shorter than RAAF's C-130J took off empty in a "combat launch".

I completely agree that an empty C-27J can take off in a shorter distance than an empty C-130J. Also with both aircraft carrying their max cargo load the C-27J will still take off in a shorter distance. However the C-27J's maximum cargo load is half that of a C-130J. Put a full load into a C-27J and a half load into a C-130J and the takeoff performance wont be that much better. Certainly not enough to warrant its introduction.

The running costs will be cheaper, as will the up front acquisition costs.".

Even though the C-27J shares alot in common with the C-130 it would most likely have a seperate servicing area and they would have to be trained up etc. So thats another cost that makes the C-130J not look too bad. Not to mention you have to have more C-27J's to do the work of the C-130J. So even if its cheaper to operate per aircraft it evens out.

Also if you look at outright load capbility, you would need two C-27J's to match one C-130J. The C-27J wont be half the price.

Instead of buying 14 C-27J's you would only need around 8 C-130J's to to the same role. However i would rather spread the money. A single C-17 can effectively lift 7 C-27J's worth of cargo. So 1 extra C-17 and only 4 additional C-130J would be able to lift the same amount as 14 C-27J's. Sure these aircraft cant be in as many places but thats probably the only disadvantge. Operating fewer total aircraft also means less crew and maintenance.

Im pretty sure that 1 C-17 and 4 C-130J's will be cheaper than 14 C-27J's. Probably enough cash for a couple extra chinooks.

Personally, I think comparing the lift performance of the C-27J to the C-130J-30 is incorrect. The C-27J is suggested as a replacement for the DHC-4 Caribou which is no longer in production.

I disagree. I believe comparing the C-27J to the Caribou is the same as comparing the C-27J to a Herculues. The C-27J is much bigger than the Caribou just as the Hercules is much bigger than the C-27J. Performance of the C-27J is also half way between the Caribou and Hercules. The C-27J is much to big to be a direct Caribou replacement, it has too many capabilities of the C-130J's and not enough capbilities of the Caribou.

If we need to drop in 1 tonne of cargo into a really small area that we would usually use a Caribou for, we'd then use a Chinook. If we needed to carry 3 tonne of cargo from a normal airstrip that we'd usually use a Caribou for we could just use the larger C-130J. The C-130J would be able to take that small amount of cargo many times further at a much quicker speed. Integrating SLED into the C-130J's will allow them to make drops into remote area's that only the Caribou could get into.

In East Timor we really saw how small and short ranged our C-130's were. Thats one of the main reasons for the C-17 purchase. The C-130's are an excellent short range airlifter. The C-27J would be even shorter.

If we didn't operate the Hercules then the C-27J would be perfect. As C-17 >> C-27J >> Chinook is still a nice and even. Though we'd probably need more C-17's as the C-27J could not do long distance stuff.

 

[swerve]

I completely agree that an empty C-27J can take off in a shorter distance than an empty C-130J. Also with both aircraft carrying their max cargo load the C-27J will still take off in a shorter distance. However the C-27J's maximum cargo load is half that of a C-130J. Put a full load into a C-27J and a half load into a C-130J and the takeoff performance wont be that much better. Certainly not enough to warrant its introduction.
....

You seem to be missing the point of having different size aircraft.

If you have a large number of small loads to deliver, then it makes sense to buy a large number of small aircraft. For a small number of large loads, you buy a small number of large aircraft. In practice, everyone has a mixture. So you analyse the mixture of loads, the frequency of delivery needed (to see if small loads can be combined), runway lengths likely to be available, etc, etc, & try to work out a suitable mix of aircraft types to suit.

If you can buy & operate 3 G.222J for the price of 2 C-130J, and it means you deliver 50% more small loads to where they're needed when they're needed, then you should do it. The absolute load amount all your aircraft combined can lift is less important than the number of loads you can lift of the sizes you'll actually carry.

I don't know if the G.222J is the best available aircraft to fit into the RAAFs ideal mix, but if the RAAF analysis says so, I'll take their word for it. It can do things a Chinook can't even dream of, & which the RAAF seems to think it needs. So, it's bigger than a Caribou? So what? I suspect needs have changed since the Caribous were bought. What's being replaced is their function, and that doesn't necessarily need a copy of the airframe.

All this is absolutely basic: it doesn't apply only to the military, but to every freight operator.

 

[Aussie Digger]

You seem to be missing the point of having different size aircraft.

If you have a large number of small loads to deliver, then it makes sense to buy a large number of small aircraft. For a small number of large loads, you buy a small number of large aircraft. In practice, everyone has a mixture. So you analyse the mixture of loads, the frequency of delivery needed (to see if small loads can be combined), runway lengths likely to be available, etc, etc, & try to work out a suitable mix of aircraft types to suit.

If you can buy & operate 3 G.222J for the price of 2 C-130J, and it means you deliver 50% more small loads to where they're needed when they're needed, then you should do it. The absolute load amount all your aircraft combined can lift is less important than the number of loads you can lift of the sizes you'll actually carry.

This is absolutely basic: it doesn't apply only to the military, but to every freight operator.

The term "concurrent deployment" doesn't seem to mean much to RJMAZ1, nor does the price tag of a SINGLE C-17 and 8x C-130J's...

Apparently the fact that both RAAF and USAF see a STRONG need for a modern intra-theatre lift aircraft doesn't seem of any relevance either...

 

[RLP]

The discussion on this thread seems to be fixed on the suitability of the C-27J/G-222J from Alenia. Given that the US Joint Cargo Aircraft competition is considering two aircraft, the C-27J and the CASA C-295, are there any thoughts on how the CASA would perform? It appears that no decision has been announced yet on which one the US will select.

 

[Aussie Digger]

The discussion on this thread seems to be fixed on the suitability of the C-27J/G-222J from Alenia. Given that the US Joint Cargo Aircraft competition is considering two aircraft, the C-27J and the CASA C-295, are there any thoughts on how the CASA would perform? It appears that no decision has been announced yet on which one the US will select.

There has been no decision yet by RAAF as to which aircraft we will acquire (if ANY) to cover this role. The C-27J won the contract initially in the late 90's before it was cancelled due to a change in priorities by RAAF and is considered the favourite due to it's commonality with our existing C-130J-30's.

The C-295 is certainly an option, but whether it will be seriously considered by RAAF or not, I can't say. The US decision, I doubt will effect RAAF very much, unless they choose C-27, as I don't think RAAF is keen on anything BUT the C-27 if it decides to acquire an aircraft in this class.

Regards

AD.

 

[Magoo]

The discussion on this thread seems to be fixed on the suitability of the C-27J/G-222J from Alenia. Given that the US Joint Cargo Aircraft competition is considering two aircraft, the C-27J and the CASA C-295, are there any thoughts on how the CASA would perform? It appears that no decision has been announced yet on which one the US will select.

Both aircraft have their merits, and besides perhaps the V-22, are really the only logical contenders.

The C-27J has the obvious system compatibilities with its larger C-130J cousin (i.e. engines, cockpit systems, support infrastructure). It can also carry taller and heavier loads and has a cargo handling system similar to that of the C-130. The claimed advantages of the C-27J havinga common crew rating to the C-130J is largely irrelevant in RAAF service where this would rarely if ever be utilised.

What the C-295 lacks in cabin height, it makes up for in length. The 295's cabin also has a cross section similar to that of the CH-47, thus making it easier to transfer loads from one to the other without needing to break them down.

Both aircraft have good field performance, but cannot realistically operate from soft unprepared airstrips like the Caribou, although even for the remarkable 'Bou' this is really only possible with very light loads up anyway. What they make up for is in cruising speeds and altitudes (250ish knots@25K+ vs 150kts@15K for the Caribou), and range.

Either one would make a more than ideal replacement for the RAAF's C-130s currently operating in the Middle East which rarely carry larger than half loads, need longer strips to operate out of, and usually link up with helos to forward their loads on anyway.

Cheers

Magoo

 

[StingrayOZ]

V-22 offer more options for the LHD. As a ASW/AEW platform, independant of any other requirement we may look at getting them 2015ish.

Obviously having something that can use our LHD would be useful. V-22 and Chooks are able to land, take off and hanger on the BPE design.

Given the lack of suitable runways in the region for some of these larger craft this definately increases its capabilities.

 

[Aussie Digger]

V-22 offer more options for the LHD. As a ASW/AEW platform, independant of any other requirement we may look at getting them 2015ish.

Obviously having something that can use our LHD would be useful. V-22 and Chooks are able to land, take off and hanger on the BPE design.

Given the lack of suitable runways in the region for some of these larger craft this definately increases its capabilities.

V-22 offers ADF virtually nothing that Chinooks and MRH-90's don't, except cruising speed and range. Their payload is nothing special, their cost is horrendous, their maintenance and safety levels are abysmal and I've not seen anything other than Internet speculation that the V-22 is being developed into ANYTHING other than a USMC version and a USAF Specwarops version.

No ASW or AEW variant has been designed or even commenced design to the best of my knowledge. Suggesting we'll have them by 2015 is just a tad optimistic in my opinion... I'd suggest that if such designs ARE being considered, and ADF has any intention of gaining a tilt-rotor ASW/AEW aircraft, than 2025 at least would be a more realistic target...

We'll barely have the MRH-90 operational by 2015, we are likely to be only just getting the rumoured additional Chinooks...

 

[alexsa]

V-22 offers ADF virtually nothing that Chinooks and MRH-90's don't, except cruising speed and range. Their payload is nothing special, their cost is horrendous, their maintenance and safety levels are abysmal and I've not seen anything other than Internet speculation that the V-22 is being developed into ANYTHING other than a USMC version and a USAF Specwarops version.

No ASW or AEW variant has been designed or even commenced design to the best of my knowledge. Suggesting we'll have them by 2015 is just a tad optimistic in my opinion... I'd suggest that if such designs ARE being considered, and ADF has any intention of gaining a tilt-rotor ASW/AEW aircraft, than 2025 at least would be a more realistic target...

We'll barely have the MRH-90 operational by 2015, we are likely to be only just getting the rumoured additional Chinooks...

Here Here, add to that the space they take up and mass I would not want to see them on the LHD when the Chooks could do the job better (for our needs) without adding the complexity of another type to the ADF inventory.

My view has always been that for the cost of a V-22 squadron we would probably be able to get the C-27 and additional chooks.

 

[Tasman]

Here Here, add to that the space they take up and mass I would not want to see them on the LHD when the Chooks could do the job better (for our needs) without adding the complexity of another type to the ADF inventory.

My view has always been that for the cost of a V-22 squadron we would probably be able to get the C-27 and additional chooks.

I agree that the complex issues that would arise from adding a radically different type of aircraft to our inventory cannot be justified if other types can do the job. We know that the Chinook can do the job and a combination of C27Js and additional CH47s (ideally 6 'F's) seems to me to be a better way to go.

Cheers