Air Force Justification for Storing Its Advanced Medium Short Takeoff and Landing Prototype Aircraft

The Air force has decided to store its four advanced medium short takeoff and landing (STOL) transport prototype aircraft at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. The advanced medium STOL transport (AMST) prototype program was developed to provide a potential replacement for other military transports and to demonstrate that a tactical airlift aircraft could be built at a reasonable cost to deliver large payloads safely and routinely to short, unimproved runways. After it was decided that greater emphasis should be placed on intertheater needs rather than the intratheater needs AMST was addressing, the program was terminated in 1979. Funds were requested in FY 1981 to develop the C-X, an aircraft able to carry outsized cargo over intercontinental distances.