Posted on 07/13/2010 10:29:12 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The military has more than enough large transport planes, and the appropriation of any more in the next budget year will force some into premature retirement, Defense Department officials told a congressional panel today.
“We have enough C-17s,” Mike McCord, principal deputy undersecretary of defense (comptroller), said. “Money spent on things we don’t need takes away from those we do need.”
Along with McCord, Air Force Maj. Gen. Susan Y. Desjardins, director of strategic plans for Air Mobility Command, and Alan Estevez, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for logistical and materiel readiness, repeated Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’ position against the purchase of more C-17s to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ federal financial management subcommittee.
All three defense officials agreed with the subcommittee’s leaders, Sens. Thomas Carper and John McCain, that the C-17, in addition to the C-5, has been critical to airlift in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they said, the military’s current fleet of 223 C-17s and 111 C-5s is more than enough airlift capability for years to come.
A department study that concluded in February was consistent with two other studies that found that the current fleet is sufficient “even in the most demanding environments” to take the military through 2016, McCord said. The oldest plane in the transport fleet, Lockheed’s C-5A Galaxy, will be viable until 2025, and the fleet as a whole should last until 2040, he said.
The department has not requested C-17s, built by Boeing, since the fiscal 2007 budget, yet Congress has added them every year since, spending about $1.25 billion on C-17s “that we don’t want or need,” said McCord, a 21-year staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee before his current appointment
(Excerpt) Read more at defense.gov ...
Dang...
Well, how about selling some to our allies? Didn’t India express interest in the C-17?
Sure, you dumbassess. Just like you have enough F-22s, right?
Do you agree that we have enough?
No, I do not.
If congress were serious about cutting defense budgets in a sensible manner, they’d only fund projects the DoD asked for, not ones that serve the interests of constituents to influential congressmen. If the DoD were serious about trimming costs, they’d refuse delivery of non-requested equipment forced upon them by congress. Of course, both sides would be killing the golden goose by doing so...
I you believe this because.....?
Just asking. If Congress seems to be the driving force behind acquiring them, and I'm assuming the military is disinterested in building up their inventory, why would you want them to have more?
I can understand if you have a financial interest in their production (stock, employment, etc.). These things are not cheap to maintain, and perhaps the military would rather their budget go somewhere else.
Just running through the possibilities if the AF isn't sold on more of them.
I want to have more C-17s to meet our commitments overseas especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there is a war in Korea we will need to transport men and material from Japan to South Korea.
Retire the C-5 fleet as they are old, have minimal operational readiness rate and consume huge budget keeping them.
Agree, but they are being forced to keep C-5’s well past their shelf-life. If they could replace the C-5’s with C-17’s, they would, but they are not given that option because C-5’s are being forced on them.
Given a choice, talk to the staffs andf the flyers, the AF choses C-17’s, hands down. It is the political over-lay that is keeping the C-5's.
KC-X will provide ample transport capacity. Any aircraft offered provides more space for pallets or troops than a C-17.
A C-17 guzzles twice as much fuel as a KC-X.
The C-5Bs are being modernized with glass cockpits, new avionics, and new more fuel efficient engines. When complete, they will be C-5Ms.
We need the C-5's cargo capacity for lifting things that the C-17 can't.
There was a time not so long ago when this same argument went on regarding the C-130. "We have all the C-130s we want or need" the Air Force would say. Senator Sam Nunn and Congressman Newt Gingrich, both from the state of Georga (home of the C-130 Lockheed assembly plant,) would put a couple of C-130s into the military budget each year, keeping both the assembly line and the C-130 program alive.
Now we have the C-130J, the Air Force are buying them in droves to replace their older, tired Hercs, and we as taxpayers didn't have to go through a great big decade long drawn out competiton to design a brand new replacement for the C-130 that would end up costing ten times as much as the current aircraft.
The C-17 program also needs to be kept alive with a trickle of purchases. If Boeing gets foreign orders, then we don't need to buy any. If they don't, then we can order a couple each year as we retire the older C-5As that aren't being modernized.
If someone knows the answer to this, please advise.
Why do these cargo aircraft need glass cockpits & all the latest high-tech avionics? What requirements are they trying to meet? I can understand why bombers & fighter aircraft have to be so advanced, but why does a cargo plane need all these expensive additions?
And how many do you figure we'll need? A million, billion, zillion of them?
“Why do these cargo aircraft need glass cockpits & all the latest high-tech avionics?”
Well, none of these aircraft NEED glass cockpits or avionics (though many are designed from scratch with glass, so there’s no going back there). Having said that though, and having flown behind both varieties of technology over some 30+ years, a good “glass” package is way better than steam gauge tech.
IMHO, there is less maintenance, and greater fuel savings. This assumes the flight deck crew knows how, and is allowed to use the system to its fullest capabilities. A major airline went for years and years, before they allowed their crews to use the most beneficial capabilities of their fancy-schmancy glass packages. As to why? Standardization. It was a dumb move on the part of management, but that was their decision. I should add that the line pilots were quite embarassed by the short sightedness of their Chief Pilot’s office.
Additionally, it’s come to the point where the glass stuff is about the only game in town. My suspicion is that the price of this stuff continues to fall. I would suspect that packages with similar capabilities might actually be cheaper on the glass side. Once installed, they’ll save bucks due to increased reliability, and operational efficiency.
Thank you for the answer. That seems to make sense. I know the C-17 has to be more than just a flying truck (short runways, ECM jammers, flare system, etc), but I was bewildered by the requirements for advanced avionics in a cargo aircraft. As we all know, more requirements = higher costs.
Not many.
And its MR rate remains very low, well below the C-17.
Speak with the lifters, speak with the aircrew, speak with AQP, A-5 and A-8 staffers (the guys that flew the jets and now work requirements and funding ), and they will tell you, time to retire the C-5’s.
Wasn’t mean to be short, just have to leave. . . .
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