JACKSONVILLE, Ark. (AP) - The Little Rock Air Force Base has been knocked off the list of possible homes for the military's newest cargo plane. North Dakota is among the states still under consideration.

The Air Force announced Wednesday that seven bases are under consideration for the C-27 Spartan, a smaller cousin to the Little Rock base's C-130 Hercules. Air Force and Pentagon officials had been considering the base in Arkansas for months, but decided the base should continue to focus on its growing C-130 fleet.

The bases under consideration are in Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, and Puerto Rico. They will undergo environmental studies and fiscal and operational analysis by the Pentagon over the next several years.

"We're simply promising a look at these systems and installations as our planning continues," Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, said in a written statement.

Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy said Moseley's plan was in accordance with Base Realignment and Closure Commission regulations.

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., has said it makes sense to train Spartan crews at the Little Rock base because of similarities between the Spartan and the C-130.

"The senator's theory is we have the storage and the capacity between Camp Robinson and Little Rock Air Force Base," Pryor spokesman Michael Teague said. "It makes a perfect fit at Camp Robinson. They have the storage. And we have the premier training site for cargo airlift here."

Teague said Pryor will continue to lobby for the plane to come to Arkansas.

The C-27 Spartan looks like a small C-130, with two jet-prop engines instead of four and the capacity to haul about 10 tons, half the load carried by the newest C-130 J-model. It comes at a price of about $40 million per plane, compared with the C-130J price tag of $70 million.

In June, the Pentagon chose the Spartan as the new Joint Cargo Aircraft to be used by the Army as a replacement for its aging Sherpa troop-hauling plane and by the Air Force to help diversify its overused cargo fleet.

While searching for a home for the new planes, the Army is expected to simply replace older C-23 Sherpas with the new plane. Spartan flight training will initially be conducted by a contractor in Texas and then moved within five years to Robbins Air Force Base, Ga.