Actually, the numbers requirements were for 210 C-17s in the initial Pentagon Orders under Caspar Weinberger and President Reagan.
The Democrats, when they got control of both Houses cut the order to 120 planes and relied upon the propaganda put out by the GAO in a "study". In fact, it was their Leftwing-stuffed-shirts in the GAO which suggested we could get by with 60 C-17s, and 40 commercial freighters.
That's where this all comes from. And while indeed, some of the work, hauling personnel and such between civilized locations, could be done by commercial freighters...we do need the 210 C-17s for the maximum contingency of rough fields. But we don't have that. We got 180. And that was thanks to the Republican Congress which came in after 1994 and started trying to undo some of the DemocRAT damage. But under both of them....for some odd reason, despite the proposed "savings" option of commercial freighters...they never seem to get bought. Ever. It likely seems inappropriate to be buying the lesser planes because we still haven't gotten the numbers of the ones we need.
But I'm with you, that if the undue pressure and over-use of the C-17s [already triggering a surprise AirForce request for "exceptional maintenance and repairs" due to unforseen levels of usage...weighing in at $1.3 billion I think]....can be mitigated with some "throwaway" commercial freighters...we should try and save some money.
But we're not really "saving money" by shutting off the hot line of C-17s with less than we need for the real mission.
Any points that you feel need to be made about this formerly McDonnell-Douglas bird?
This may qualify as spilt milk and all that, but I've a question for those with institutional memory: How the heck did M-D beat out Boeing for the contract in the first place? A deliberate underbid?
