Coast Guard aviation is poised to get a much needed boost if the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2014 — which calls for the service to get 14 of the Air Force’s C-27J Spartan medium-sized military transport aircraft — is passed.
The Senate is expected to vote, and pass, the House-approved bill on Dec. 17.
The Coast Guard had been battling the Forest Service for the aircraft transfer over the past several months. The NDAA stipulates the Coast Guard must transfer seven of its HC-130H Hercules transport aircraft to the Air Force.
Coast Guard aviation has been shortchanged in the service’s budget the past two fiscal years. The fiscal 2014 budget didn’t have any funding to purchase new aircraft in the service’s $909 million acquisition budget.
During a Dec. 11 hearing before the House Transportation subcommittee on Coast Guard and maritime transportation, Vice Adm. John Currier, the Coast Guard vice commandant, said the service will stop its purchases of HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircraft at 18 because it will get the C-27Js. The program of record was 36 of the maritime transportation aircraft.
seapowermagazine
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