ARMY AL&T
JCA Joint Program Office (JPO)
In December 2005, Program Decision Memorandum III directed the Army to lead the JCA program, which merged the USAF Light Cargo Aircraft with the Army Future Cargo Aircraft. The Army and USAF Vice Chiefs of Staff (VCSs) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) in June 2006, paving the way ahead for the convergence of these two programs. In October 2006, the JCA JPO stood up at Redstone Arsenal, AL, with an Army Product Director and a USAF Deputy.
In June 2007, L-3 Integrated Systems was awarded a 5-year, fi rm-fi xed-price requirements contract. The contract was designed to accommodate the Army- validated requirement for 78 aircraft (54 for the Army and 24 for USAF), plus potential international sales.
Since contract award, the JCA has been a model ACAT 1D joint program that is meeting its cost, schedule, and performance goals today. This exemplary performance earned the JPO the 2008 Defense Acquisition Executive’s Certifi cate of Achievement, which highlighted the obligation of more than $400 million for 13 aircraft, engineering services, bed-down and phase-in, aircrew training, and interim
Since contract award, the JCA has been a model ACAT 1D joint program that is meeting its cost, schedule, and performance goals today.
contractor support. To date, three JCAs have been delivered. The pro- gram took delivery of JCA 1 and JCA 2 in September and November 2008. This was both a critical and an impres- sive feat, considering that the program was delayed 90 days due to protest. The accelerated deliveries of these two aircraft were critical to keeping the pro- gram on schedule, as they were required to begin aircrew training and airworthi- ness fl ight testing.
Training and Testing Training of the fi rst class of pilots and loadmasters began in November 2008. JCA training is a 14-week, contractor- led course conducted to Army standards and governed by Army regulations. The JPO split the eight pilot seats in Class 1 into four seats each for Class 1A and Class 1B. Class 1A was designed to produce qualifi ed test pilots to take the program through production qualifi ca- tion testing (PQT). It consisted of three pilots from the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command’s Development
Test Command Aviation Flight Test Directorate and one USAF Operational Test representative assigned to the JPO. Class 1A allowed the contractor to gain experience in instruction while allowing the government’s test pilots to obtain aircraft profi ciency, knowledge, and experience. Class 1B was designed to produce pilots who could evalu- ate the contractor fl ight training. Class 1B consisted of four Army aviators and loadmasters who possessed fi xed-wing instructor and combat experience. Class 1B validated the training for Class 2, in which pilots and loadmasters will conduct the program’s Multiservice Operational Test and Evaluation (MOT&E) and sub- sequently deploy with the fi rst JCA unit. Instruction for Class 2 began Nov. 30, 2009, and is composed of two Army and two USAF crews.
PQT commenced in earnest with the graduation of the aircrews from Class 1A. Before their graduation, elec- tromagnetic environmental effects (E3) ground testing was successfully
A C-27J Spartan fl ies over Monument Valley, UT. (Photo courtesy of the Aviation Systems Project Offi ce.) APRIL –JUNE 2010 27
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