Just read on Aviation Week on-line that the USAF

[Fog]

is going to mothball immediately the 38 new C-27Js they were getting for intra-theater transport. Why doesn't the USMC take them, make half of them gunships & use the others for their own transport needs in Afghanistan & other GWOT places? Just an idea.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Currently all of the Marine Corps R&D money is allocated to adding a RIO, second engine, internal gun, and hook to the F-35B.

 

[robav8r]

I think looming fears of Sequestration are causing everyone to consider unnatural acts of budget belt tightning in an attempt to stave off further cuts in their programs.

 

[robav8r]

Currently all of the Marine Corps R&D money is allocated to adding a RIO, second engine, internal gun, and hook to the F-35B.

What is the source of this?

 

[phrogpilot73]

What is the source of this?

I think it was a joke... i.e. make the F-35 an F/A-18...

 

[robav8r]

I think it was a joke... i.e. make the F-35 an F/A-18...

Whew, thank goodness . Long day after learning the F-35 is going to be the "star" in Top Gun II. I kid you not . . .

 

[phrogdriver]

Fog...you know the answer is the same thing that always kills ideas that make good sense: "It's a different pot of money...."

 

[robav8r]

Fog . . . "It's a different pot of money...."

Or my personal favorite: "It's the wrong color of money."

 

[HAL Pilot]

This is the second time the Air Force has gotten out of the C-27 business. When we closed down Howard AFB, Panama they got rid of all the C-27 over the objections of Southcom and the Army. Along comes Iraq, the Army says they are going to get C-27s and the Air Force crys "They're ours, you can't have them!"

History is repeating itself. The Army will ask for them and the Air Force will suddenly decide they need them.

 

[Fog]

It's OK to visit Davis-Mothan and find the types of a/c you've flown (if not an actual BuNo in one of the old squadrons), but somebody should walk the plank when a service takes over a new a/c program from another service (as the AF did to the Army) and then kills it suit their parochial needs. Reminds me of the Army Caribous they flew in Viet Nam - only to disappear forever.

 

[helolumpy]

Could this bea "shaping fire" like the Navy recently employed when saying we might have to go to 10 carrier from our present 11.
This might be a way to get specific Senators and Congressmen involed in the fight on the DOD's side.

 

[Jim123]

Could this bea "shaping fire" ... to get specific Senators and Congressmen involved ...

I follow your logic- what a screwed-up playbook! (I'm not shooting the messenger--you--here.)

 

[Coota0]

Or the USAF could turn the unused aircraft back over to the Army, the USAF's former partner in the program before the USAF through a fit and decided that they needed full control of the program and all of the aircraft.