On Flight International -
US Coast Guard to acquire USAF's remaining C-27J Spartans
The US Air Force’s 14 remaining Alenia Aermacchi C-27J Spartans will soon come out of mothballs.
The tactical transports, which were operated briefly by the service before being removed from use starting last year, will resume their flying for the US Coast Guard, under an aircraft swap directed by the US Defense Authorisation Bill for fiscal year 2014.
Signed by President Barack Obama on 26 December 2013, the bill directs US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to make the transfer after the coast guard transfers seven of its Lockheed Martin C-130s to the USAF. The air force must then convert these into tankers to be used by the US Forest Service.
The aircraft swap brings closure to open questions about the fate of the USAF’s remaining C-27Js, most of which are in storage at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona. The air force calls the base the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, but it informally goes by another name: the boneyard.
Unlike other aircraft resting at Davis-Monthan, the relatively-new C-27Js were not put out to pasture – they have been kept in flying condition while the Department of Defense decides their fate, says the USAF.
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