NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The top of Air Mobility Command envisions only one kind of plane will deal with the Air Power’s strategic airlift wants when the venerable C-17 and C-5 transport jets are changed, although the precise nature of that plane is but to be decided.
“So far as what we would like within the subsequent platform: we would like agility, we would like pace, we would like to have the ability to function in the next menace surroundings,” Gen. John Lamontagne informed reporters at a Sept. 22 media roundtable at AFA’s Air, House & Cyber Convention.
“These aren’t all issues that blend very well, and so what you prioritize and what you cherish, will assist outline the place we go,” he added.
The aim is to switch the C-17 specifically across the 2040s, ideally earlier than the airframe turns into tough to maintain flying amid the navy’s nonstop worldwide demand for its energy and vary.
“If we have a look at what occurred with the [C-]141 after the Gulf Battle, it mainly informed us when it was completed,” Lamontagne mentioned. “We’d prefer to have a plan in place, so when the service life begins to erode on the C-17, whether or not it’s wings, engines, or extra, we’ve bought a contest already going.”
The Air Power has 222 C-17s about 22 years outdated on common, whereas its fleet of 52 C-5s is about 37 years outdated on common. For scale, the C-17 can carry a single Abrams tank, whereas the C-5 can carry two or a handful of helicopters.
No matter takes the place of these plane, it would possible should do extra than simply fly cargo and passengers. As Air Power officers eye more and more refined anti-aircraft threats from rivals resembling China and Russia, one precedence is for future airlift platforms to “make sense of the surroundings,” Lamontagne mentioned, utilizing each onboard sensors and safe, long-range communications in order that air crews can plug into bigger sensor networks.
“In the event you can’t make sense of the menace surroundings, you’ve bought no probability,” he mentioned.
The plane additionally wants defensive programs, notably towards longer-range weapons, in order that airlift can “convey much more functionality to the joint power in a a lot deeper menace surroundings,” Lamontagne mentioned. And it must to spend as little time on the bottom as doable whereas refueling, since on the bottom is the place plane are most weak to enemy hearth.
The final expects an evaluation of alternate options for next-generation airlift someday within the subsequent few years. An evaluation of alternate options is a comparability of merchandise for navy wants, with the aim of choosing the most suitable choice to information the subsequent step of the acquisition course of.
When requested about latest discussions to restart the C-17 manufacturing line, Lamontagne mentioned there aren’t any present plans to take action.
“One step at a time,” he mentioned. “Capabilities-based evaluation, evaluation of alternate options, competitors.”
Whereas the overall envisions one airplane will change the C-5 and C-17, there’s multiple future airlift program on the town. Others embody small, autonomous planes that may ferry about 3,000 kilos over quick distances, and an intra-theater platform that may land and take off from a broken runway.
How NGAL would match with these different capabilities is just not but clear. Within the meantime, Air Mobility Command can be nonetheless growing choices for a Subsequent-Era Air Refueling System, or NGAS, to switch the growing old KC-135 tanker.
After AMC accomplished an evaluation of alternate options for NGAS this spring, the command just lately put out a request to business to assist the command get extra refined estimates for a way a lot it could value to provide next-generation tankers able to evading enemy sensors.
“Is it an F-35 stage of beautiful stealth with a KC-135-sized platform, or one thing in between?” Lamontagne mentioned. “That is actually, at its easiest, an try to refine these prices … and determine what’s within the realm of the doable on the proper stage of signature administration, if we go down that route.”
The final mentioned he expects Trade responses within the subsequent few weeks. For now, “nearly each possibility is on the desk.”