Mexico signs $200M contract for four C-27J aircraft
New success on the international markets for the tactical transport aircraft C-27J, designed and built by Alenia Aeronautica, a Finmeccanica company. Mexico has in fact ordered four C-27Js for a total value of about 200 million dollars. The contract has been signed today at the headquarters of SEDENA (Secreteria della Defensa Nacional) in Mexico City, at the presence of General Augusto Moisés Garcìa Ochoa, Director General de Administracion de SEDENA and General Leonardo Gonzàlez Garcìa, Comandante de la Fuerza Aerea Mexicana, and Mr. Giuseppe Giordo, Alenia Aeronautica’s CEO and Responsible of Finmeccanica’s Aeronautics Sector.
The first aircraft will be in Mexico City before the military parade on September 16th 2011 and the whole supply will be completed by the end of 2012. The contract envisages also the logistics support of the whole fleet for several years.
“We are very pleased with the Mexican choice” Giuseppe Giordo has commented: “Thanks to this order, considering it is the first in Latin America and premise of further orders by other countries of the same area, the number of airplanes ordered to date goes up to 83, confirming the C-27J as best seller among the aircraft of its category”.
The C-27J greatly enlarges the current operational capability of the Mexican Air Force thanks to its load capability and to the suitability to carry out many mission types such as transport of troops, goods and medicines, logistical re-supply, MEDEVAC (Medical Evacuation), airdrop operations, paratroopers’ launches, search and rescue (SAR), fire-fighting, humanitarian assistance, release of liquids dispersing hydrocarbons in the sea in the event of accidents on oil platforms, and missions in support of homeland security.
The C-27J is a twin-engine turboprop tactical transport aircraft with state-of-the-art technology in avionics, propulsion and systems. It provides high performances, high cost effectiveness, extreme operating flexibility and it is the only aircraft of its class offering interoperability with heavier airlifters.
The C-27J is capable of taking off from and landing on unprepared strips, less-than-500 m. long, with maximum take-off weight of 30,500 kg; it may carry up to 60 equipped soldiers or up to 46 paratroopers and, in the air ambulance version, 36 stretchers and 6 medical assistants.
The large cross section (2.60 meters high, 3.33 meters wide) and high floor strength (4,900 kg/m load capability) allow heavy and large complete military equipment to be loaded. The C-27J can, for example, transport Hammer, engines of fighter and transport aircraft, such as C-130, Eurofighter Typhoon, F-16 and Mirage 2000, directly on their normal engine dollies without further special equipment.
The C-27J has already been ordered by the air forces of Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, Morocco and by the US. Air Force. The aircraft has also been selected by Slovakia’s air force.
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