Boeing's JCALS: A Common Answer to Joint Airlift

The future of the U.S. Air Force/Army Joint Future Theater Lift (JFTL) concept is pretty murky, but some interesting insight into the design work done so far has surfaced. JFTL is the merger of the Army's Joint Heavy Lift (JHL) and Air Force's Advanced Joint Air Combat System (AJACS) concepts, and is a potential replacement for the C-130 - if funding can ever be found.


The Army favors VTOL and JHL concept development work focused on large tiltrotors. The Air Force wants a high-subsonic. ultra-STOL aircraft, as evidenced by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Speed Agile concept demonstration work. The JHL work is complete and AFRL finishes up next year, What happens then is an open question.

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