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C-21 replacement in the future ?


Guest xclozano

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post-4767-125540585404.jpg no! How about some mission oriented aircraft first. Jeeze.

Out

Sounds like a disgruntled employee. Just say no to drugs!

On topic, I've always thought that they would eventually replace the C-21 fleet with something that had more legs, but not as much as a G IV/V...maybe a LJ60 or Citation X? I have no data or intel to back this up, but I've always thought that it would make sense. Maybe after OEF.

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Guest Hueypilot812

This question was explored about 7-8 years ago, and the answer was "no". The C-21s are still in good shape (at least they were then) and had plenty of life remaining. Chances are if they ever do replace them, I doubt you'd see a Lear 60 replacing them. Think more along the lines of a Citation Excel, etc (sorta like the UC-35s). Maybe a Lear 45. But those are big ifs. Honestly, my time in the Lear was fantastic, but it's an excellent mission for the Guard/Reserve to do. I think all those BRAC'd ANG/AFRC units that are slated to get Preds should become OSA units instead. The Army Reserve is mostly combat service support...makes sense that the non-combat support units should also be in the AF Reserves.

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When the AF drops SUPT and goes back to sending all fixed wing pilots though the T-38 or whatever its replacement/supplement will be (e.g. Hawk or T-45), there will be plenty of T-1s ready to take the C-21's place :-)

I am betraying my age but when I joined the T-39 was already the CT-39 and had not seen a student in over a decade.

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the word is there is no replacement in the near future, but sky king is on to something. currently, there is no c-21 funding after 2012 so I guess that leaves southwest to move the boys around, but we'll see. currently, fargo, csprings, and bradley have c-21s and have been flying josac missions just like active duty. there is a good possibility all c-21s could go to the guard, but again, that's just speculation.

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Guest Hueypilot812

Flying C-21s in the Guard would be an awesome reserve job. Easy airplane to stay qualified in, great missions (fly out in the morning, hit 3-5 destinations, then home for dinner), good way to go out and get some flight time. Plus we won't have AD guys tied up flying white jets.

I say we should keep using the C-21 vice the airlines so long as they have useful life remaining. They are paid for already, and they aren't really that expensive to operate and maintain compared to most everything else in the inventory. And if you can load up a C-21 with 6-7 pax, it's actually cheaper than flying those same 6-7 people on AA or Delta using a government fare in many cases. If anything they should cut back on the number of Gulfstreams and start flying our whiny Congressmen and Senators in the Learjet instead of the big iron.

Personally, units like Ellington, et al, that lost actual aircraft to UAVs should get the C-21 instead. Having ANG Learjet squadrons in CT, ND, CO, TX and DC could easily cover any and all OSA missions in the CONUS.

At least Airbus dosen't build a biz jet.. yet. So says my quickie 45 second google search.

The French have Dassault, so no need to create competition for their homegrown corporate products. I'd be willing to bet that Dassault is somehow tied financially to the greater-EADS umbrella anyhow.

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Reopen the Beech Starship production line.

The French have Dassault, so no need to create competition for their homegrown corporate products. I'd be willing to bet that Dassault is somehow tied financially to the greater-EADS umbrella anyhow.

It is, Dassault is the "defense" division of EADS. Defense being the "D" in European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).

Does Dassault "do" biz jets? I'm way to lazy, nor do I give a crap to research Frog civil aviation.

post-4709-125556060768_thumb.jpg

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Guest Hueypilot812

Reopen the Beech Starship production line.

It is, Dassault is the "defense" division of EADS. Defense being the "D" in European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).

Does Dassault "do" biz jets? I'm way to lazy, nor do I give a crap to research Frog civil aviation.

Yep, they make the Falcon line of biz jets, like the Falcon 900EX, etc. There's a Dassault completion facility at the Little Rock National Airport, in fact. If you've ever seen a tri-jet biz jet, chances are it's a French biz jet. Their line used to have a few small and mid-size biz jets like the Falcon 10 and Falcon 20, but I don't think they make those anymore. They have focused almost exclusively on the large to intercontinental class that competes with the likes of Gulfstream, Bombardier and the Citation X.

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Guest Hueypilot812

Interestingly enough, the actual primary C-21 mission isn't DV airlift, or at least it isn't supposed to be. C-21's were introduced so that we could have a parallel path to train aircraft commanders, one that (used to) cost about 1200 and hour vs 10,000 and hour while simultaneously providing airlift to military leadership.

The program was designed to alleviate big bottlenecks of co-pilots in MWS squadrons, even during the times that C-12 ACE programs were common, and there wasn't the operational demand we see today.

Once a guy went through the C-21 tour, he or she would be able to directly enter AC school in an MWS, just learning the new systems and mission, but still having achieved the experience of commanding an AF aircraft.

If the AF has this aspect of upgrade flow solved on a long term basis, then they can get rid of C-21's However, if not, they'll have to figure out how they'll manage the extra number of co's coming into the MWS squadron that would have gone to the OSA world first. Maybe it wouldn't be a factor, but I think the original intent of the program was fairly reasonable and well thought out.

That was and still is the reason the C-21 mission exists. C-21 pilots typically attend a crossflow program into a MWS, and don't serve much time as a copilot in the new airframe. However, it's common for people to upgrade to AC in 2 years these days, so there isn't a huge need for C-21 crossflows...in fact, FAIPs produce the same kind of crossflow pilot.

I would agree that if it was taking over 3 years to produce an aircraft commander in most MWS communities, then the C-21 would be a viable way to bring more left-seaters into the cockpit. However it's common to see MWS copilots upgrade in 2-3 years these days, and given training dates, etc, it takes about 3.5-4 years before a C-21 pilot will ever contribute to a MWS community.

I suppose "back in the day" it was common to spend much longer as a copilot in MWS aircraft, but with OIF/OEF and other commitments around the world, it's easy to build time.

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  • 6 months later...
Guest Crew Report

Pretty sure ADW doesn't. Peterson has AD & COANG...not AFRC.

The -130 unit at Peterson is AFRC, not ANG.

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Guest Hueypilot812

The ARC units that fly the C-21 are the COANG, NDANG and CTANG and I think the Michigan Air Guard.

Andrews only has the 457th Airlift Squadron, which is an AD unit...however the DCANG flies the C-38, which is similar to the C-21 in mission, but slightly larger.

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