AF's New Aircraft Arrives at Bagram

[unhappycamper]

AF's New Aircraft Arrives at Bagram
December 29, 2009
Air Force Print News|by TSgt. John Jung

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - The newest aircraft to the Air Force's inventory arrived to Bagram Airfield. The MC-12 aircraft, tail number 090623, was the first of an undisclosed number of aircraft for the new 4th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron here.

Following the MC-12's arrival, the 4th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron was activated to carry out MC-12 operations in the Afghan theater of operations.

Col. Patrick McKenzie, the 455th Expeditionary Operations Group commander, presided over the brief ceremony attended by approximately one hundred Airmen and Soldiers.

"The MC-12 is much more than just a fleet of aircraft, its pilots and maintainers. It also consists of equipment and personnel that collect and broadcast full-motion video and signals intelligence, as well as crews that process, exploit and disseminate the information," Colonel McKenzie said. "In addition, the MC-12 encompasses a host of communications experts that support and maintain the added capability that the aircraft brings to the warfighter."

Taking the reins of the 4th ERS was Lt. Col. Douglas Lee, deployed from Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., and a native of Tuscaloosa, Ala.


Rest of article about the $25+ million dollar aircrart at: http://www.military.com/news/article/air-force-news/afs-new-aircraft-arrives-at-bagram.html?col=1186032325324



unhappycamper comment: Meet the $25+ million dollar MC-12:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC-12



~snip~

The MC-12 is a USAF intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform and Air Combat Command (ACC) asset, which was fielded under an ambitious timeline in 2008 and 2009 to meet ground support ISR requirements in the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) Area of Responsibility for Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Known as Project Liberty, the MC-12W platform was created in response to Defense Secretary Robert Gates' initiative to better support warfighters on the ground with increased ISR in theater.

USAF plans to procure 37<6> MC-12W aircraft. Mission qualification training in the MC-12W is currently conducted by a combined active Air Force and Air National Guard detachment embedded with the 186th Air Refueling Wing (186 ARW) of the Mississippi Air National Guard at Meridian Regional Airport / Key Field, MS. <7><8><9> The program is being managed by L-3 Communications with some assistance from Alliant Techsystems and has a contract value of $950 million.<6>

On June 10, 2009 Liberty flew its first combat sortie over Iraq,<10> and arrived in Afghanistan the last week of December, 2009 to establish the 4th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron.<6> The Iraq deployment occurred only eight months after contract award and two months later than expectations.<6>


$950 million / 37 = $25.67 a copy. I wonder how much $400 gas this thing burns per hour?

[caraher]

1. The airframe is a Beech King Air 350

There's no reason to expect it to be particularly hoggish with fuel. I assume you meant $4/gallon fuel, which is a more realistic aviation fuel price.

The stock 350 cruises at up to 300 knots and has a range over 1600 nautical miles. It also carries up to 539 gallons of fuel. If it flies 1500 nm at 300 knots that would be 5 hours, so ballpark fuel burn rate would be about 100 gallons/hour. But if its flying intelligence missions they're probably doing a lot of loitering, throttled back and sipping fuel, so it's probably less than that.

The military can certainly be extravagantly wasteful, but I'd direct my ire more toward the jets with pointy-noses and no rational mission. This actually meets an identified need in a war we're actually fighting (for better or worse).

[unhappycamper]

2. No, I meant $400 dollars per gallon of gas delivered in Afghanistan.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Expensive-Afghanistan-Mil-by-Martha-Rose-Crow-091017-126.html

[caraher]

3. Ah

Well, $400/gallon strikes me as an overestimate. I ran across a study that pegs gas at around $45/gallon (p. 1-19), delivered, taking into the costs of protecting fuel convoys, etc. The report also has a fascinating pie chart of fuel use by military services as a fraction of all government fuel consumption - not surprisingly, the USAF burns most of it, with the Navy well ahead of the others for second place.

It would be fascinating to re-price domestic gas by adding in the cost of military activity in support of control of oil supplies. Without much thought I'd guess it would at least double...

[PavePusher]

4. Well, you have to consider only that portion of petro-fuels we actually receive from the are.

We don't get all that much from the Middle East these days, mostly Iraq.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

[jmowreader]

5. It's a King Air 200, not a 350--even more conservative with fuel

The Army has had these for a while (they're called Guardrails), but AFAIK Guardrails don't have the video package on them.