US military scraps whole Afghani C27A fleet over maintenance

[Stratofreighter]

FACTS:

1. This is not the newly-purchased and recently-cancelled C-27J. These aircraft are 1980-vintage, Italian surplus G.222 aircraft, very similar to the C-27As the USAF operated out of Howard AB, Panama during the 90s.
They were purchased by DoD (not the Army or the USAF) with the express intent of "donating" them to the Afghan AF.
For various legal reasons--and because the Afghans didn't want these unreliable, un-maintainable airplanes--they were never transferred to AAF control.

2. The performance of the G.222 is totally inadequate in high altitude, hot conditions.
This makes the airplane unsuited to perform its mission a significant portion of the year in Afghanistan.
DoD acquisitions folks should have known this before they inked the deal.

3. The G.222 has always required a lot of maintenance, something that the DoD acquisitions folks should have known before they inked the deal.
Even fresh out of the refurbishment, they were often unable to make the flight from Italy to Afghanistan without breaking down along the way.
The fleet in Kabul was plagued with fuel leaks, flap problems, landing gear problems, and several engine failures.
That's why they were grounded from Dec 11 thru May 12.

3. Since the plane has been out of production for decades, most of its spare parts are no longer available.
DoD acquisition folks should have known this before they inked the deal.
I don't know whether Alenia misled them, or they just didn't ask the right questions.
Consequently, most of the 16 planes on the ramp in Kabul were unflyable because they were cannibalized for parts to keep 4-5 airplanes flying.

Overall, the program was a fiasco, and its termination is long overdue.
The USAF's inability to manage this program made us look incredibly stupid, so we lost a lot of credibility with the Afghan leadership and pilots we were trying to mentor.

Above is in addition to
http://www.stripes.com/news/us-scraps-e ... s-1.202220 ,
which was written because of
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 58668.html

[Le Addeur noir]

They've learnt the slow way.

The Thai G222s were chopped from service for the same reason and one of their airframes had less than 2,000 hours on it.And the Thai G222s were delivered in 1994 and 1995.

[USAIR]

That's money wasted I would say.

Lucky to have seen at least one of the C-27A's 14046



Adios C-27A

[Tigerspoon]

Oh my godness. Saw almost six of them flying in 2010 with ANA/ US Air Force Personnel...............(including the VIP Version)

[Stratofreighter]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/ ... 8A20130131

Alenia defends its work on the program, and says the twin-engine G222, an earlier model of Alenia's C-27J cargo plane, is one of the safest, most durable cargo planes available.

An Alenia spokesman said the company was in talks with U.S. lawmakers about the Air Force's decision to back away from the G222 deal,
and what could be done to ensure that Afghan forces had continued airlift capability until the C-130s arrived.

He said the program was on budget and meeting or exceeding requirements at this point after an admittedly rocky start.
"We're flying missions every day," said the spokesman.

"We're not disputing the Air Force's decision to bring in C-130s; that's their prerogative," said the spokesman.
"We just want to see if there's a way to continue providing airlift until those other planes get there."