Turin airport is one of Italy’s sleepier facilities, far from the bustling hubs of Rome, Milan or even Naples. But despite the quiet, for Alenia Aermacchi, Turin still represents one of its more important sites. Two of Alenia’s key lines are located there – the Eurofighter Typhoon, largely for the Italian air force, and the C-27J medium transport.
In some senses, Turin airport is an ideal match for Spartan production: both appear to gently tick over without overly troubling the wider world. And it continues to sell – most recently a deal for two to an undisclosed African nation, widely thought to be Zambia – but has not sealed a substantial deal since the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) committed to 10 aircraft in 2011. Its overall backlog is 82, with 67 delivered. The thorn in its side is the Airbus Defence & Space C295, against which it directly competes, and which has outsold it, with total orders for 153 aircraft, according to Flightglobal’s Fleets Analyzer database.
To up the C-27J’s capabilities, however, from late 2017 Alenia is set to roll out a pair of parallel upgrades to the baseline aircraft, in turn preparing it for a key ongoing contest. A wide-ranging avionics enhancement for all new aircraft will see it gain a long list of upgrades, including a new flight-management system, weather radar, video terrain-awareness warning system and updated identification friend-or-foe system, and will also be head-up display and digital-map capable. This could eventually be a retrofit package for existing customers if there is sufficient demand, says programme engineering head Christian Amendolagine.
Alenia is already in discussions with a number of operator nations about the potential upgrade, he says, although it will try to split these into user groups – for example, the RAAF aircraft are similar in configuration to those flown by the US Special Forces Operations Command – to limit the number of packages it needs to develop. "Right now we are trying to get a common view among customers,” says Amendolagine, and an operator-group meeting to be held in November will progress this aim.
One item, a defensive aids suite, is excluded from the upgrade on the grounds that it tends to be a customer-by-customer choice.
The other aspect to the enhancement is a boost to the aircraft’s performance. This is achieved by the addition of winglets – first flown earlier this year with what he calls positive results – and a tweak to the engine-management software to allow it to operate at higher power. Bench tests of the uprated Rolls-Royce AE 2100 powerplant in combination with the six-blade Dowty propeller have already been conducted, says Amendolagine. "The main concern was the gearbox, but even that is designed for more power," he says.
Alenia Aermacchi
First flight of the higher-thrust baseline engines should take place in mid-2017, with power output now at 5,100hp (3,800kW). The combination of winglets and higher-rated engines in turn allows maximum take-off weight to grow by 700kg, to 32.5t. "From structural and handling-qualities standpoints, we can go to that weight without any problems," says Amendolagine. Hot and high performance also will be improved, with the extra power available up to 6,000ft at 28˚C.
These enhancements to the baseline aircraft go a long way to addressing the requirements contained in Canada’s tender for fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) aircraft, arguably one of the biggest realistic prospects for the Spartan in the near term. Inevitably, it again faces competition from the C295 and potentially the Lockheed Martin HC-130J, but Alenia is hopeful that the imminent entry into service of the C-27J with the US Coast Guard will serve as an ideal illustration of its capabilities.
The FWSAR configuration features a General Dynamics Canada mission system – common to the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Lockheed CP-140 Aurora and Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone fleets – an L-3 Wescam MX-15 electro-optical/infrared turreted sensor, under-fuselage Selex Seaspray 7000 radar, and large teardrop-shaped spotter windows. An up-and-over rear door can be opened in flight, replacing the C-27J’s existing paratroop door, and launcher tubes are included for flares, marker smoke or buoys. In addition, the mission system is palletised, allowing rapid reconfiguration to provide personnel transport for disaster-relief operations, and cargo or aeromedical missions.
It is a multi-use philosophy that was previously applied to its Praetorian gunship variant, says Amendolagine. "We did Praetorian that way because we see the market saying they don’t have the money to buy more than one aircraft for different missions – so a reconfigurable solution is the best one."
Speaking of Praetorian, Alenia is now working on a second phase of the programme in collaboration with the Italian air force. An initial example was modified in 2014, and a memorandum of understanding calls for a further three aircraft to receive the latest version of the upgrade at the end of the development process.
During the initial phase, the MC-27J gained a fixed 30mm Orbital-ATK GAU-23 cannon located in the rear fuselage on a roll-on, roll-off pallet. This will now be upgraded to a trainable version of the gun, and a number of launcher tubes will be added to the rear cargo ramp to allow the use of small diameter guided weapons such as Orbital-ATK’s Hammer and Hatchet munitions. Updates to the data link to the Link 22 standard and to the aircraft’s communications suite are also likely to feature.
Aside from its Italian air force customer, the manufacturer is also close to securing a further sale, it indicates.
Further out, Alenia is also proposing the Spartan as a multi-mission aircraft for the UK Royal Air Force. It sees it fulfilling a number of requirements as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform, a tactical transport for the command support air transport mission, or even a maritime patrol aircraft. The C-27J could, in Alenia’s view, replace a number of the service’s current types, such as the Raytheon Sentinel R1, Beechcraft King Air 350-based Shadow R1 and BAe 146. It would also be armed with new underwing pylons, each able to carry a payload of up to 908kg (2,000lb).
Interestingly, the current chief executive of Alenia Aermacchi is Filippo Bagnato, a man with more than 700 aircraft sales to his name during his time heading the ATR turboprop joint venture. Critics have often dismissed his successful track record as being simply down to luck – but whatever the truth, those on the C-27J programme are hoping a little bit of his magic can rub off on them, too.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
