TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. Special Operations Command has paused an ambitious program to make its MC-130J transport plane able to water landings and takeoff.
Air Force Special Operations Command first announced the project in 2021, with plans to reveal the aptitude the next 12 months, Military Times previously reported.
But on Tuesday on the Special Operations Forces Week conference here, Air Force Col. Justin Bronder, this system executive officer for fixed wing programs at USSOCOM, said the MC-130J Amphibious Capability project had been paused as a result of budget constraints. Within the Pentagon’s budget request, unveiled in March, the military asked for $11.5 million for the project.
Bronder said that work on the project, including a “very successful, technical deep dive” with industry had allowed the military to “give you an actual wealthy, data-driven model” on learn how to make an amphibious version of the massive tanker/transport plane operational. He added it’s a capability the force could field if needed.
Officials previously stated the aim of this system was to provide the aircraft options to take off and land on bodies of water and runway-independent locations. That capability would broaden and deepen the range of options in various regions, but specifically within the Pacific.
“That’s going to provide us the flexibility to show any large body of water right into a landing zone where we will insert [or] extract special operations forces and the equipment and other things that may cause dilemmas for our adversaries,” then-Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, on the time serving as AFSOC commander, told reporters in 2022.
Designers began with digital designs, Slife said. They worked through testing to choose what form of configuration would work including a catamaran, pontoon and whole applique attached to the underside of the aircraft, Slife added.
The design they settled on was a kit that could possibly be added to the aircraft in the sphere when needed, relatively than an entire redesign or everlasting feature of the plane.
The aircraft, first in-built the Nineteen Fifties, has served generations of troops in combat across the globe. But it surely’s now facing threats in a more contested airspace.
In 2022 officials announced a series of experiments with the aircraft — each the MC-130J special operations version and the KC-130J Super Hercules version utilized by the Air Force. Those involved high-energy lasers, amphibious landing and takeoff capabilities, crewless operations, and fully automated cockpits, Military Times previously reported.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.