• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

C-27J Spartan Sighting!

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
The men and women of the 179th Air Lift Wing, stationed at KMFD, lost their C-130H Hercules transport planes this summer. Those planes were redistributed to active USAF units. The replacement will be the C-27J Spartan. The unit currently has 1 Spartan and a few C-21s...basically Lear Business Jets with military avionics and some USAF stickers. More Spartans are scheduled for delivery in the latter half of 2011 with full inventory by 2013.

Today, I got my first sighting of the C-27J Spartan. In flight no less. I was coming out of my mother-in-law's house after dropping off Christmas presents and cards. I heard a plane, looked up, and out of the gloom came the Spartan. It did a wide banking circle around the area then disappeared back into the gloomy sky. I then drove to my sister-in-law's house a few miles away to see if her and Deb needed any help with their dad. As I got out of the van, I heard the Spartan and scanned the sky...and there it came! A bit lower this time and doing some nice banking turns left and right.

My overall impressions after these two sightings:

The Spartan is a nice looking aircraft. Very similar to the C-130 in overall profile and shape. About 1/2 the size though. And the noise signature (now there's a technical sounding term) is less than half of the Herc. The turboprop engines are quieter and the prop chop is far less than the Herc's....but it has a "ring" to it that I can't describe...an odd high pitch note as the plane is moving away.

Though I will sorely miss seeing and hearing the Hercules flying over head, I think I will come to enjoy seeing and hearing the Spartan. Can't wait to see and hear a 3 or 4 plane flight come roaring down the valley that my house sits in, passing directly over my house.

OBIO
 
from a soldiers standpoint the C-27J is a wonderful aircraft, will definately put a stop to 'HIH' (Herc Induced Headache), internally it's much quieter. the noise reduction is by having them Dowty 7-bladed props, and the newer engines... Obio feel priviledged you spotted one, they're a rare bird at the moment but they'll increase in numbers. and when you see one display flying in the flesh i guarantee you'll be thinking "transport aircraft? that things a darn aerobatics aircraft"... kinda like this.... watch the STOL decelleration :icon_lol: insane!

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZHt4q_NUgQE?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZHt4q_NUgQE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
 
A very nimble aircraft in deed. I doubt I'll see any of the 179th's Spartans doing that sort of flying over my town, but I know I will see some good flying and some "yanking and banking" if what I saw them doing with the Hercules is any indication of things to come with the new plane.

Just wish there were a good Spartan for FS9. There is a G-222 out there someplace that is freeware, but lacks a VC. Or maybe it's a Spartan....didn't keep it for more than a few minutes...no VC killed it for me.

OBIO
 
I've watched this program go to 72 airplanes plus whatever Spec Ops wants, then drop to no SOF birds and 38 total. Then I've heard that 38 is the base, not final number. Than I heard something along the lines of "38 is it!!" I don't know what to think any more.
 
Yep and in Canada the C-27J is running like the USAF Tanker Bid war. We had 2 of them testing up here in the Arctic against the CASA 295. The C-27J won all test. The CASA 295 had very severe issues handling and maintaining under Arctic WX and environment. Want a huge Snow-blower just call for a Spartan. The C-27J is never late to dinner and is a excellent STOL performer on all landing surfaces.
 
C-27's are a regular visitor to the Panalpina cargo facility on the southeast side of the Birmingham, Alabama airport. Atlas Air B747's fly in cargo and unloads there, and the C-27's load up and whizz away with whatever the heck it is. Maybe Fliger747 will tell us what the stuff is...I've been curious for quite awhile.
 
CG_1976 said:
Yep and in Canada the C-27J is running like the USAF Tanker Bid war. We had 2 of them testing up here in the Arctic against the CASA 295. The C-27J won all test. The CASA 295 had very severe issues handling and maintaining under Arctic WX and environment. Want a huge Snow-blower just call for a Spartan. The C-27J is never late to dinner and is a excellent STOL performer on all landing surfaces.
Click to expand...

Besides those reasons, the C-27J would be good for Canada from a logistical standpoint. The C-130J and the C-27J have many common systems. This was done on purpose, to make the Herk/Spartan team more attractive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top