That slant to the now controversial issue is shared by Morgan Law, executive director of the Houston County Development Authority, and Dempsey Solomon, C-27 training lead for L-3 Communications.
L-3 and its partner, Alenia North America, have a five-year contract to build 38 of the light cargo aircraft for the Defense Department. The agreement also includes initial air crew and loadmaster training.
L-3 chose Robins as its training location after forging a partnership agreement with the State of Georgia Department of Defense and the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center. Alenia, Georgia Air National Guard and base officials opened the Robins site last December, indicating that student numbers would expand to144 by 2014.
As part of the agreement, the Georgia Guard provided access to its expansive former B-1 facilities at Robins. State and local agencies also agreed to fund construction of a $600,000 annex to house high fidelity fuselage and cockpit simulators. L-3, in turn, agreed to spend $1.2 million to outfit the training annex and another $40 to $50 million for the two simulators.
However, that game plan became problematic last Friday when the Air Force announced plans to move C-27J training to one of six locations previously approved to receive the first 24 aircraft.
Gary Strasburg, an Air Force Pentagon spokesman, confirmed the move on Monday, although he said the timing is uncertain.
“We still have to make the selection of the bases then do the environmental studies,” he noted. “So we can’t specify when the training will end at Robins and begin some place else.”
There is speculation that Air Force officials want the training at an operational location in part due to the C-27’s small fleet size. The Army began the C-27 program several years ago primarily to replace aging C-23 Sherpas for hauling troops and supplies into and out of short-runway, isolated battlefield locations. The Air Force joined the effort in 2007 and a contract was let with L-3 and Alenia for 78 aircraft. Since that time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has shifted program management to the Air Force and cut the buy to 38 airframes.
Despite the Air Force’s Friday announcement and Monday confirmation, both Law and Solomon say it is business as usual for the local partnership. Both also imply that Air Force plans to terminate training at the Robins location may not be set in concrete. Comments were requested but not received from Robins and state officials and follow-on questions posed to Strasburg at the Pentagon were not answered.
“At some point (between now and 2014), the Air Force will conduct a business case analysis to determine if future domestic training will be done organically or by contractor,” Law said. “In either case, if the decision is to relocate there would be a transition period. We have been told by the Georgia National Guard that training will continue at Robins through 2014.”
At this point, both Law and Solomon believe any reasonable business case analysis would favor keeping the training at Robins. The Guard facilities are ideal for classroom instruction and accommodation of training aircraft while the pending annex will be a highly specialized facility expensive to duplicate at another location.
“The contract for the annex was finalized in mid-February,” Law said. “Construction is scheduled to commence May 24 with an anticipated completion date in August.”
L-3’s inputs are also well under way. “We are in the final throes of design approval for outfitting of the building,” Solomon reported by telephone from his Arlington, Texas, office.
Work on the simulators is also in the advanced stage. “The fuselage trainer will be delivered to Robins in June,” he said. “Alenia built it and is putting it on a boat within a week for shipment to Savannah. Hardware for the cockpit trainer is complete and we’re working the software integration. We hope to have that in the facility early next year.”
The cockpit trainer will provide C-27 student pilots with the full gamut of flight exigencies. The same is true with the fuselage trainer for loadmasters.
“The aircraft tilts, squats and raises up depending on loading requirement,” Solomon pointed out, “and our fuselage trainer will do all of that. The entire back end of it works exactly like the aircraft. It has wenches. It simulates emergency procedures for paratroopers. It is a sophisticated device.”
L-3 is outfitting the annex and building the simulators at company expense. “Those are all company – not Air Force – asset,” Solomon said.
Outfitting the annex is an extensive project, he noted.
“The floor has to be reinforced since the simulators are full motion. They weigh about 30,000 pounds so you can’t have them on a standard floor,” the L-3 executive said. “The computer rooms and related cooling are other factors. It’s a very unique structure.”
Duplicating the training site at another location – including classroom, hangar and simulator space – would be very expensive. The simulators could be shipped, Solomon concedes, although it would not be easy.
“They are by no means mobile,” he said. “They would have to be delivered in pieces and set up.” More to the point, L-3 has no agreement with the Air Force to build additional simulators or to ship the Robins units to another location, he stressed.
Solomon sees significant opportunity for training foreign aircrews and loadmasters at Robins as more C-27s are sold overseas.
“We have spoken with and visited multiple countries,” he confirmed, “and aircraft deliveries range from four to up to 16. In all cases, each country wants to do their initial training with us at Robins.”
Sophisticated countries such as Australia would eventually build their own training center, he indicated. “But even they would go through their initial training at Robins,” Solomon said.
Law said his office has been engaged at the highest levels with the Georgia Department of Defense and with the state’s congressional delegation.
“It is our understanding that the Air Force has not pulled the plug on the C-27 training mission at Robins,” he said.
Solomon agreed, despite the shifting of program management to the Air Force and cuts in the aircraft buy.
“The mission is the same and you have to train guys to fly and load it,” he said. “To us, we haven’t seen some of the changes that warrant the comments we’ve seen.”
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