NGAUS Legislative Alert #14-16

The National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS) periodically sends out NGAUS Legislative Alerts. The alerts are requests for support of certain issues that impact the National Guard.

Use the “CLICK HERE” at the bottom of this post. It will link you to a page on the NGAUS website. The page includes a short summary of the issue and a prepared text to send to Hawaii’s senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and your district’s representative, Colleen Hanabusa (District 1) or Tulsi Gabbard (District 2). You can edit the text and after providing some contact information – members of Congress will acknowledge your email – you press send and you’re done.

The Issue: Ensure that the ANG C-130H fleet remains operational beyond 2020.

Immediate Action Required:  Ask your senators and representatives to cosponsor S.2758 and H.R. 5119, the C-130 Modernization Act.

More Information: The Air National Guard (ANG) currently operates around 40 percent of the Air Force’s C-130 fleet and airlift capability with some of the most experienced pilots and maintainers in the force. However, the ANG possesses some of the oldest models of the aircraft, the C-130H model.

The Air Force is projected to have approximately 250 C-130H models in its inventory (assuming fleet size remains at current levels) until fiscal 2018. And over 90 percent of the aging fleet resides in the reserve component. These aircraft will soon be impacted by changing avionics regulations which will result in limited access to certain airspace.  The Air Force needs flexibility to upgrade C-130Hs to meet avionics mandates by 2020.

Without modernization, the C-130H fleet will lose the ability to operate in many portions of the world. This would make Guard aircraft incapable of global operations, ultimately restricting airlift capability and diminishing the Guard’s role as an operational reserve of the active component.

The Air Force should work with the ANG to provide a distinct and coherent modernization and recapitalization plan. This is the only way the Air Force can maintain robust Total Force airlift capability moving into the future.

pete.duffy@ngaus.org

Take action now! CLICK HERE