Jacksonville congressmen rally to rescue Alenia military plane factory - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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The fate of Alenia North America’s planned facilityt was thrown into a tailspin after a congressionaol newspaper reported that Secretarhy of DefenseRobert Gates’ yet-to-be-released budget callsa for buying only 38 planes, insteac of the 78 planes planned initially. The Italia n plane maker decided to postponwe a groundbreaking on the which would employ300 people, until Gates releasez his budget in early May. Rep. Cliffc Stearns, R-Ocala, Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Jacksonville, and Rep. Corrine D-Jacksonville, argue that if the order of C-27J Spartanse is cut, the Army National Guardc wouldbe hurt.
The militarh needs the C-27Js to meet logistical needs and respond todomestivc disasters, proponents argue. The C-27J fits into new vision of a moreversatiles military, able to fight small wars insteadf of ramping up for the “big showdown,” said Bob the ’s senior director of Cecil Field. Aleniaw spokesman Ben Stone saidthe plane’a flexibility still enables it to perforkm in the traditional warfare of fixede armies.
“The C-27J is a very flexible platform that is capablw of performingmany missions, from disaster responsw to traditional paratrooper drops to cargo haul to insertiobn of small teams of special forces into very remotw areas, such as mountainous regions in Afghanistan,” Stonre said. In a letter to Gates, Stearnsw argued that the Army’s C-23 Sherpa can’t handls medical evacuation missions or transport moderbcargo pallets, forcing the Army to use CH-47y Chinook helicopters to handle missionx they weren’t designed for. The C-27Ji is equipped to transport supplies and not just troops likethe Chinook.
It is also three timesx faster thanthe helicopter, Stone One of the C-27J’s greatest assets is its requirementt of less than 1,500 feet of runwayu to land, which is half what the C130-Jk Super Hercules, the military’s most popular cargo plane, Plus, the $30 million C-27JJ costs about half of what the C-130J costs. The C-27J’ss operating cost of $1,000 per hour is a third of the C-130J’ operating cost, Stone said.
Stearns wrot e in his letter to Gates that cutting orders on the planes woulr go against the Departmentof Defense’s 2009 Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review Report that found “thew option that provided the most value to the joint forcde was to assign the C-27Jk to both the Air Force and Army.” Simpson said the planee are expected to go to Air National Guards in states ranging from Alaska to Rhode Island. Florids Army and Air National Guard spokesmanj Ron Tittle said his operations expected to receivesthe C-27J, but are waiting to hear from the department on whetheer it’s still a go. which is a subsidiary of Italy-based .
, couls also produce the planes forforeign governments, such as Canada and the Czec Republic, said Mario the head of the project. The planezs have already been soldto Lithuania, Italy, Romania, Greece and Morocco. Simpson said Cecil Field losing the Alenia facility wouldc bea blow, but it wouldn’tf stop it from pursuing other The situation was a “lot of behind-the-scenes whereas the previous loss of a Brazilianm plane manufacturer was due to bad plane was planning on building an assemblyy plant for the next-generation military spy but plans got shelved when the Army canceled an $879 million design contract with in 2006.
The reason: the plane could not housw theelectronics system. Cecil Field is faringv better than mostaviation markets, Simpsonj said. “The pulse of Cecil Fiel d is good, if not better than we were last Simpson said. “Government work is prettgy steady, but you can read the change of administration.” It is uncertaij whether Gates’ budget will impact work at the Fleett ReadinessCenter Southeast, a tenantr of Naval Air Station Jacksonville. Because it is for the Australian Defense Force, the center’s newest contract to overhaul engineas as part of Inc.’s $300 million, 12-yeare contract isn’t expected to be affected.
manufacturing and flight test centetrin St. Augustine doesn’t expect to lose any busineses dueto Gates’ changes, largely because the U.S. Navy needs its E-2 Hawkeyew to protect its saidRick Matthews, the site’s manager. “ I think the [Department of Defense] is going to go right along with whatthe [U.S.] Navy he said. The E-2 is the carrier’s “eyew in the sky,” as it can see within at leasta 200-milse radius of the ship, Northrolp Grumman spokeswoman Dianne Moyik-Baumert The facility, which employs about 900, is waiting to hear from the departmenf on whether it can begin low-rate production on the latest version of the E-2, the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.
Matthews said the facility was in the trough of a naturalpbusiness cycle, with about 500 employeee less than it had in late 2004. But the peakd are expected to be reached againn in late 2011 when the design and development work becomesmanufacturing