C-27J wins FCA competition (too bad)

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070613/army_jca_contract.html?.v=2

L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. on Wednesday beat out rival Raytheon Co. to win a Pentagon contract worth up to $2 billion to build cargo planes for the military.

A senior advisory panel at the Pentagon picked a team led by New York-based L-3 to build 78 C-27J Spartan cargo planes by 2013, replacing the military’s aging light cargo aircraft, senior Army and Air Force officials said.

Analysts expected L-3’s team, which includes Italian partner Finmeccanica SpA’s subsidiary Alenia North America Inc., Boeing Co. and Global Military Aircraft Systems to beat Raytheon. The Waltham, Mass.-based company teamed up with CASA, a subsidiary of European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. NV, and offered to build C-295s.

While both companies make twin-engine turboprop planes, L-3’s C-27J is considered larger, heavier and more technologically advanced than the C-295.

The L-3 plane costs slightly more than the cargo plane Raytheon offered but it has performed better on short runways, flying longer distances without refueling and is bale to hold more weight.

the whole point of the JCA is that the C-130 is massively wasteful for most milk runs (something like $50k/hour i believe) and the Sherpa is beyond pathetic and can’t carry standard pallets so all cargo has to be manually loaded

yes, the C-27J performs ‘better’ than the C-295, but the whole point is something cheaper. The C-295 is both cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate.

If something is too big/heavy for the C-295, then no problem, we have plenty of C-130s.

Plus there is one important area where the C-295 is superior- The C-27J has can only carry 3 standard pallets while the C-295 carries 5 standard pallets

since cargo missions often cube out before they hit max weight, the C-295 would be both more useful and less expensive