NATIONAL GUARD ASSOCIATION OF ILLINOIS

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RESOLUTION IL-08

Relating to the Avionics Modernization of the C-130 Fleet

BACKGROUND

Two thirds of the C-130 Fleet resides in the Air Reserve Component of the United States Air Force. Based on the Air Mobility Command Master Plan, a portion of that fleet will be replaced with the C-130J and the remaining aircraft will receive the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) upgrade. The current contract with Boeing includes 500+ aircraft - 360 c-130s that are part of the tactical airlift/combat delivery forces and 150+ C-130s that are part of Special Operations Forces or perform special missions. The modernization of this fleet will provide a cost-effective way of revitalizing this essential combat capability while lowering overall Total Ownership Costs and significantly improving reliability, maintainability and availability.

The C-130 continues to provide critical airlift support for in-theater forces and is programmed to be the cornerstone of the Future Combat System for the US Army (ie., everything sized to be C-130 transportable). The C-130 AMP will ensure that the C-130 can continue to fly in US and international airspace by meeting the Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) requirements of the 21st century. These requirements mandate the installation and integration of communications, navigation, and surveillance equipment for worldwide operations..

From a logistics standpoint, the C-130 AMP will improve system reliability by 1500% and increase mean time between failure by 31%. The open system architecture design will help solve the obsolescence issues of today by minimizing the cost of future integration efforts. Commonality of parts across C-130 Mission Design Series (MDS) will lower overall Total Ownership Costs by reducing the current 15 C-130 MDSs to one core design with 5 families - 1 for Combat Delivery, which inclueds most C-130s and 4 for Special Operations aircraft.

RECOMMENDATION

It is the recommendation of the National Guard Association of Illinois that Congress and the Department of Defense support full funding to the C-130 AMP during System Development ,Demonstration, and Production phase of the program to ensure the success of this software intensive integration effort..