T
he Pentagon announced Wednesday at 5 p.m. that the Army and Air Force had picked the L-3 Communications team’s C-27J Spartan as the Joint Cargo Aircraft. The team includes L-3, Alenia North America, Boeing, and Global Military Aircraft Systems. The contract calls for purchase of up to 78 aircraft at an estimated cost of $2.04 billion. The team will manufacture the aircraft at Alenia’s plant in Italy and perform additional work at L-3’s Waco, Tex., facility. The Army issued the contract, but lawmakers have questioned whether the Air Force should take exclusive control of the intra-theater airlift mission.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
