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>>I was the one who stood up at the last major Joint Conference on Transformation and asked everyone (including the AF and the DA Staff) why we are letting the Air Force make us design our future combat systems within the constraints of a C-130---in other words why our vehicle of the 21st century must be designed with the major requirement that it fit into the AF vehicle of the mid 20th century. . .<<

I hope the answer was becasue the C-130 is the aircraft we have the most of right now, and for many years into the future.

>>We should design the perfect vehicle to meet the capability requirements of the future and then tell the AF to design their new transport aircraft to match that capability.<<

Perfect world, that would be nice. Real world, limited budgets, long-lead times for aircraft design and deployment (10-plus years), lots of on-again, off-again programs (Sgt York), and you can quickly see the problem with designing an aircraft to perform a specific role, in support of a yet-to-be-fielded single specific piece of equipment.

And besides. . .what happens if the aircraft design and production gets cancelled for whatever reason. . .then you would really be stuck.

Tough nut to crack.

>>I was the one who stood up at the last major Joint Conference on Transformation and asked everyone (including the AF and the DA Staff) why we are letting the Air Force make us design our future combat systems within the constraints of a C-130---in other words why our vehicle of the 21st century must be designed with the major requirement that it fit into the AF vehicle of the mid 20th century. . .<<
I hope the answer was becasue the C-130 is the aircraft we have the most of right now, and for many years into the future.
>>We should design the perfect vehicle to meet the capability requirements of the future and then tell the AF to design their new transport aircraft to match that capability.<<
Perfect world, that would be nice. Real world, limited budgets, long-lead times for aircraft design and deployment (10-plus years), lots of on-again, off-again programs (Sgt York), and you can quickly see the problem with designing an aircraft to perform a specific role, in support of a yet-to-be-fielded single specific piece of equipment.

A senior USAF officer writes:
"Some senior airlift officers had some interesting comments about Stryker. There's 3/4 of an INCH on either side of the Stryker when it gets loaded into a C-130. You cannot carry anything else onboard when it's loaded in its stripped configuration, which means the crew, extra armor, ammo, etc. have to go in another plane.
Here's the real kicker--they couldn't fly the Stryker up to Andrews AFB (the big 'demo' that was supposed to convince the doubters) from Pope AFB in North Carolina because when you put one Stryker into a C-130 it limits the range to under 200 miles! You have to offload so much fuel to get the plane into a safe flying configuration that it can't fly very far at all--certainly not operationally significant distances. But never mind the details--we have some transformation to do!
Our airlifters just roll their eyes at all the Army's antics, but they play along because they know the Army is the only agency who wants more airlift. They don't care how stupid the concept might be (IBCT in 96 hours? A howler! They can't get an IBCT from Ft Lewis to McChord in 96 hours!), they're just happy to have someone generating more airlift squadrons and wings for them. So it goes."

C-130 Overloaded with wheeled vehicles crashes and burns in Afghanistan: how will they be able to fly 19-21 ton lav3strykers?

This article lays out yet another set of sad implications from Army lies. In this case, the Army understated cargo weight and it cost 3 Americans their life, in addition to a MC-130 etc. And this cargo only weighed 25,000 pounds. What are we doing with Styker at over 40,000 pounds? This should be exposed.

Army Times
December 09, 2002
Weight of cargo cited in crash of MC-130H
Three killed in June 12 accident in Afghanistan
By Bruce Rolfsen
The June 12 crash of an Air Force transport in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of a Soldier and two Airmen was caused by the plane being overloaded with cargo, an accident investigation board concluded in a report released Nov. 15. Air Force Brig. Gen. Frederick Van Valkenburg Jr., a fighter pilot and commander of the 37th Training Wing at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, presided over the board. He concluded that a combination of "imprecise information" about cargo weight and a "get-the-job-done" attitude led to fatal mistakes.
Valkenburg faulted the weight-estimating procedures used by the Army - and accepted by the Air Force - for allowing the plane to take off with a load heavier than estimated. He didn't fault any individuals for the accident.
The Air Force Special Operations Command has made five changes to its cargo procedures as a result of the accident but the command won't discuss specific changes, said spokeswoman Maj. Karen Finn.
The accident took the lives of Army Sgt. 1st Class Peter P. Tycz II, of the 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C., and two Air Force loadmasters, Tech. Sgt. Sean M. Corlew and Staff Sgt. Anissa A. Shero, both of the 15th Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Fla.
The assignment for the crew of the MC-130H Combat Talon II that day was to help ferry 30 Soldiers, their vehicles and their gear to Kandahar from a remote dirt-and-rock landing strip near the Bande Sardeh dam.
The movement required five flights split between two aircraft.
The MC-130H, based in Oman, was to fly three of the hops, while an older MC-130E Combat Talon I, staged out of Uzbekistan, was to handle two trips.
As Air Force special-operations planners worked up the flights' fuel and cargo requirements, they figured the first payload weighed about 17,500 pounds and that the maximum allowable load was 21,000 pounds. The Talon carried a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, a Special Forces gun-mounted vehicle, a trailer and three Soldiers.
The payload's weight was a critical factor for the night operation because the special operations-modified C-130 took off in thin air from a dirt airstrip at 7,200 feet above sea level.
About 45 minutes before the crew members departed their Oman office for the plane, a mission coordinator got word the Army had upped cargo weight to 20,500 pounds, the report said.
The weight estimates came from Army Special Forces team members at Kandahar. And because there was no practical way to weigh cargo at such isolated airstrips, Air Force special-operations crews depended on Army weight estimates.
The mission pilot, a major with 4,721 flight hours in C-130s, was given a verbal message about the change, but he misunderstood and thought the new weight was 19,000 pounds.
But all those estimates were wrong, the accident investigation board concluded.
When the investigators weighed similar gear plus other items in the Army trucks - such as six cases of MREs - the board concluded the cargo weighed between 23,000 and 25,800 pounds.
The first sign of problems came when the Talon had to abort its initial takeoff roll because it hadn't accelerated fast enough. The aircrew thought the problem was caused by a tailwind.
After turning around, the plane made a second takeoff attempt and this time got airborne. But the Talon couldn't reach a speed higher than about 123 mph and an altitude of 200 feet.
The landing gear was pulled up, but within seconds the plane began losing speed and altitude after it lost the lifting effect of being near the ground. Even after the flight engineer began dumping fuel, the plane couldn't stay aloft.
At 30 feet above the ground the pilot announced, "We're going down."
The MC-130H struck the ground tail first and skidded to a halt about two miles from the runway.
Loadmasters Corlew and Shero and Soldier Tycz, all of whom were in the cargo bay, died immediately from head injuries.
The other five aircrew members and two Soldiers escaped from the plane before it caught fire.
Bruce Rolfsen covers Air Force issues.

It looks like Strykers are going to kill a lot more American soldiers, too. Sad.

-archy-/-

I threw you off a bit by changing which vehicles I was talking about. My comment had to do with the FCS, not the Stryker. You are absolutely correct about the Stryker and the C-130, because the Stryker is a limited production vehicle for use in only 10% of our combat force and only for the next few years.

But the FCS is a whole other story. The plan is to design a vehicle that covers the entire gauntlet of combat vehicle requirements (1 chassis with different varients), to start fielding in sometime around 2010 and continue through 2018 or beyond. Oh, and by the way, instead of spending a few billion on it as we are the Stryker, we are talking hundreds of billions to reoutfit the entire Army.

With that it mind, I almost fell off my chair when the senior AF and Army Generals got up and told the over 300 contractors and others there to ensure they kept in mind the diminsions of the C-130 when they design this vehicle. I think the military can come up with a bit more imagination than that...perhaps the AF needed to take a more active part on the design team and that perhaps changes to their aircraft also had to be encorporated as part of the solution. For instance, if the optimum vehicle that will outfit the entire Army from 2010 to 2050 should be 22 tons, is there no way the AF can start coming up with improvements in its C-130s so they can handle that much weight, given the fact they would have 7 years to do so? I understand budgets and POMs, etc, but again it seems the entire DoD needs to transform their thinking. The bottom line is it is still a bit bizarre that our system of product development and distribution makes us design the most important vehicle of the next 50 years based on transportation technology that was developed 50 years ago. And I like the C-130 by the way.

But maybe I am wrong.

Serious question...how much does a C-130 cost?