Pentagon is Sending New Cargo Planes Straight to "The Boneyard"

Still ordering them

The Pentagon is sending $50 million cargo planes straight from the assembly line to mothballs because it has no use for them, yet it still hasn't stopped ordering the aircraft, according to a report.

A dozen nearly new Italian-built C-27J Spartans have been shipped to an Air Force facility in Arizona dubbed "the boneyard," and five more currently under construction are likely headed for the same fate, according to an investigation by the Dayton Daily News.  The Air Force has spent $567 million on 21 of the planes since 2007, according to purchasing officials at Dayton's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Of those, 16 have been delivered – with almost all sent directly to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, where some 4,400 aircraft and 13 aerospace vehicles, with a total value of more than $35 billion, sit unused.

Comments

[Greg83]

Barricade the WW2 Memorial and shut down the Amber Alert. Nothing left to cut!

[Stormy Dragon]

Except the Air Force keeps trying to cut this funding, and the House Republicans keep putting in ammendments making it illegal for them to do so. More Republican "keep the government out of our Air Force cargo planes" I guess.

[SomeGuy]

if that is true....I'll assume it is. I personally wouldn't be surprised but to say the least...they all suck.

[Sigivald]

At least in part this is AF vs. Army infighting over fixed-wing transport, as usual; see here for instance.

The Air Force claimed the C-27Js cost more to operate than C-130s; this is both plausible and also being questioned by the Senate.

The entire thing reeks of internal ball-playing and politics.

(And of course, the shutdown doesn't affect this, because the contracts were all signed long ago. If they try to stop delivery, that just costs more later.

Lastly, it should be noted that while craft at Monthan are "unused", definitionally, many of them are very much ready to be used if needed, or can be made so rapidly.

The rest of them are spare parts or mothball fleet. That's why the boneyard's at Monthan, not someplace wet.)