Letters

摘要

With "Airlift on Thin Ice" [October, p. 32], John Tirpak continues his valuable series of annual updates on air mobility. But I think he underemphasized the real challenges to initiating a successful fix to the national air mobility system, which is in some danger of experiencing a major systemic or operational failure in the near future. The real challenge isn't technological or a series of Band-Aid fixes to geriatric aircraft. A young fleet of widebodied, next generation tankers, C-17s, and C-130Js offers the capacity to move the core of our military requirements. A few C-5Ms and C-27Js at the margins will allow the military to move the critical loads too big for the C-17, and to quiet the gabbling of a few organic users about responsiveness and/or having to plan ahead on their movement requirements. No, such a fleet won't be state-of-the-art or as efficient as possible, but it is available and it will work over the next half-century, particularly if the Air Force manages to wear out the C-5M fleet astutely.