The amateurs discuss tactics: the professionals discuss logistics.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Every unit that is not supported is a defeated unit.
Maurice de Saxe, Mes Reveries, XIII, 1732
The line between disorder and order lies in logistics.
Sun Tzu
Wars use up insane amounts of material in a very short time. Soldiers need "bullets and beans" to fight. Tanks and aircraft need ammunition and spare parts. Everybody needs fuel.
I can recall being told that by day 3 of a European conflict the F-15s would be down to just their guns and a pair of rear-aspect-only Sidewinders because they'd have gone through all of their good missiles.
While most of the heavy stuff tends to go by ship, that takes time. Just like in the civilian world, when it has to be there overnight you put it on an aircraft.
Or, in the case of Afghanistan, the place is totally landlocked and airlift becomes even more essential.
I've never flown a military cargo plane, but this was a secondary mission for the tanker. That's what the "C" stood for in KC-135. We certainly carried our fair share of "stuff" around.
Cargo planes (and ships) aren't sexy and tend to get shortchanged in the budget process. You can't do much without them, however.
C-130 Hercules
This is a C-130J which is the latest model. You can tell one of these by the funky curved propellers.
This is the go-anywhere, do-anything workhorse of military airlift and has been since 1954. They're still building these things folks! Over 70 different countries have operated this aircraft over the years.
The "Herc" specializes in inter-theater transport. They're able to operate from short, unimproved airstrips very close to the front lines. During the Vietnam War, the besieged Marines at Khe Sahn were largely resupplied by C-130s.
I know you want to see the C-130 landing on the carrier so here it is.
The only problem with a Herc is it's sloooooow. I can recall leaving Panama in the tanker while a C-130 from Mansfield OH was heading home at the same time. We made it to Ohio in about four hours, it took them at least eight.
There are too many versions of this thing to cover them all. Gunship, tanker, rescue, special ops, command-control platform just to name a few. The plain vanilla cargo version is the most numerous by far.
Gratuitous shot of a C-130 dispensing flares.
Some of the "oddball" versions can be air refueled. This made of an interesting rendezvous because we would have to overtake them instead of the other way around. I think we had to put some flaps down as well.
Ski equipped C-130s at McMurdo Station, Antarctica
I suspect these will be around for a very long time. I doubt they'll ever come up with something that does the job better.
C-123 Provider
Looks kind of like a C-130 but isn't. You've seen this thing in every movie from Con Air to Die Hard 2.
The only reason I include the C-123 is because this is what Hollywood uses when they need something that looks like a C-130. These were all retired from active service by 1980.
Looking like a scaled down C-130, this plane was originally designed as a glider for the Army. The addition of two piston engines made it a decent little tactical airlifter for the Air Force. Later versions had a couple of small turbojets added for extra performance.
These were most notable for spraying the infamous "Agent Orange" in Vietnam.
Apparently there are still a few C-123s flying around in private hands but I've only seem them in museums. You've seen these in a bunch of movies like Con Air and Die Hard 2.
C-141 Starlifter
The C-141 served us well for 40 years. We probably should have just built new ones and used them for 40 more.
The "starlizard" was the backbone of strategic airlift from the mid 1960s until 2006. Basically we flew the crap out of these planes for forty years and wore them out.
Everyone I knew that flew these had nothing but praise for the aircraft. Lockheed has always built a great aircraft and these were no exception.
The 141 had a pretty modern cockpit for its day. Note the vertical tapes used on some of the instruments.
The mission was tough on the crews, however. Even back in the day I can remember these guys being away from home something like 180 days a year.
Early pic of a C-141A before they got the camo paint job. The C-141B was longer and had a prominent air refueling receptacle.
During Iraq-the-sequel I can remember shuttling exhausted C-141 crews back and forth between the East Coast and California because they'd hit their legal limit of flying time. They all looked like they'd been "rode hard and put away wet".
I was happy to do it. My strategy in 2003 was to volunteer for any mission that didn't involve going to the Middle East. It worked.
C-5A Galaxy
Here's FRED. This was the largest plane in the world when first built and it's still plenty big.
Do you know what if means if you see three C-5s and two of them are up on jacks? It means they ran out of jacks.
The C-5 has been a problem child since day one. The initial development went into massive cost overruns. It had weakness in the wing structure and couldn't carry its design payload until the whole fleet was re-winged in the 1980s.
C-5 cockpit before they were upgraded. Note that each pilot has their own set of thrust levers.
C-5s have a reputation for breaking, usually caused by hydraulics. The landing gear is exceedingly complex, allowing the aircraft to kneel for loading cargo. I was told they don't like to use that feature because it almost always breaks. The gear consists of 28 wheels and the rear trucks can be steered to make tight turns on the ground.
The very complex main gear of a C-5.
I've crawled through one of these exactly once. They're seriously huge. The cockpit is waaaaay up there. It's more like being on a ship than an airplane.
Interesting photoshop of a C-5 and its Russian counterpart the Antonov 124.
This aircraft has a lot of capability that is rarely if ever used. Do you really think we're going to take a plane that's classified as a
national resource and land it on a dirt strip in a combat zone?
C-5 swallowing what looks like a boat of some sort.
Sure, you can drive a couple tanks into it, but that's an incredibly inefficient way to transport tanks. What are you going to do with
two tanks when you get there?
C-5 on takeoff roll
These use a lot of fuel so your options are either: have it make a refueling stop somewhere (and probably break) or air refuel it. Note that gas from a tanker is expensive gas indeed.
Because of this it's earned the nickname of FRED: F*cking Ridiculous Economic Disaster.
We spent a lot of money to make it capable of operating from unfinished airstrips near the front lines, when we never needed that capability or had any intention to use it.
- aviation historian Robert F. Dorr
C-17 Globemaster III
Despite initial cost overruns (no surprise there) and some teething problems, I'm told the C-17 is a pretty decent airplane.
It's kind of a "one size fits all" aircraft that can carry oversize cargo like a C-5 over a long distance like a C-141 and land on a short field like a C-130.
C-17 and C-130 size comparison.
It's easy to mistake one of these for a C-5 but it's noticeably smaller if you see them parked next to each other. The C-17 also has winglets, which the C-5 does not.
C-17 parked next to a C-5. While similar looking the C-17 is a good bit smaller.
The systems are quite advanced with fly-by-wire flight controls and a stick rather than a yoke. When we first started air refueling these things, the controls were actually
too responsive. They had to redesign the software to make them less twitchy while air refueling.
The advanced cockpit of a C-17. Note the heads-up displays and control stick.
A couple of these scared the crap out of me back there.
If the boom operator called "back four" on the radio he meant "you're getting too close, move back four feet". Normally the next thing you heard after "back four" was "Breakaway! Breakaway! Breakaway!"
One night I heard "back four" and then "BACK EIGHT!!!"
The C-17 had come so far up underneath us that a breakaway maneuver would probably have caused our tail to pitch down and hit them. We were screwed either way at that point.
I'm told these guys can use their thrust reversers in flight and can do a tactical descent that will water your eyes.
I fear we may wear the C-17s much earlier than planned. Like the C-141 before, we've been flying the heck out of these things in support of our, ahem, "commitments" overseas.
KC-10 Extender
I always liked this paint scheme on the KC-10.
Back in the 1980s everybody wanted to fly these things. We used to joke that "nobody wants to fly a tanker but everybody wants to fly a KC-10" and "once you get past the $10,000 coffee maker it's still a tanker". Everybody wants the shiny new airplane, however. Plus having a DC-10 type-rating looked good on an airline resume back then.
KC-10 refueling a C-5. The KC-10's cargo capacity was always considered its strong point.
While developed as a tanker for SAC, these actually have spent much of their lives hauling cargo. Makes sense. It's a big plane and can haul a lot of stuff. It also wasn't much use to SAC since it had no "quick start" capability for an alert launch.
We couldn't take our check-ride behind a KC-10 because they were so easy to refuel from.
These are also very popular for "fighter drags" because they can refuel the fighters and carry most of their support personnel and equipment.
I'm surprised to see that the Air Force is talking about retiring these due to budget cuts. Not sure that's a good idea. Unlike the KC-135, these can do boom/receptacle and probe-and-drogue refueling on the same sortie. That means they can refuel Air Force or Navy/Marine/NATO aircraft without being reconfigured.
Plus they can haul a lot of stuff. But, you know, they're not sexy like F-22s and B-2s.
KC-135
KC-135 doing med-evac from Afghanistan. That cargo door limited what we could fit on the aircraft.
The taxpayers at least got their money's worth out of the old 135. They've been going strong since the 1950s and they'll be around for few years yet. It's not sexy but it's the plane that makes us the Air Force that we are.
Everybody wants USAF tanker support. Fighters, bombers, transports, Navy, Marines, NATO we refueled 'em all.
Cargo wasn't our big thing in the KC-135 but we could do it. If they didn't mind sitting elbow-to-elbow we could get about 50 people in the back. I did quite a few missions that were just hauling people from Point A to Point B.
KC-135 with a C-130 and C-17.
Our cargo hauling ability was limited by what could fit through the cargo door and the fact that the floor was made of plywood. It could only support so much weight.
In our favor, we could go a loooooong way without stopping and we probably wouldn't break when we got there. The tanker is a pretty simple, reliable aircraft.
KC-46 Pegasus
KC-46 (Boeing 767) refueling a B-2
After the boondoggle that was the KC-X replacement tanker "competition" the Air Force decided that it wanted a 767 tanker built by Boeing. No surprises there.
Nothing against the 767 or Boeing. Boeing builds a great jet and the 767 is one of the best.
I realize this is blasphemy but I wonder if we'd have been better served by the A330-based Northrop/Grumman tanker.
Let's look at the numbers:
The KC-46 can carry a maximum of 190 passengers or 19 pallets of cargo. It has a max fuel load of 200,000 pounds.
The KC-45 (A330) could have carried a max load of 280 passengers or 32 pallets of cargo. Max fuel load was 250,000 pounds. It also had slightly greater range.
The KC-45 would have been an Airbus A330 based tanker. Some countries have purchased it as the KC-30.
Let's face it. This was probably a done deal from the beginning. I wouldn't be surprised if they re-wrote the specifications to favor Boeing. That's how these things usually work.
VIP Transports
The Air Force operates a variety of aircraft for VIP transports. Everything from Lear Jets (C-21) and Gulfstreams on up to the 747 that carries the President.
C-21 (Lear 35) in Air National Guard markings. I guess if driving generals to work is your thing.
I rode the jump seat in a C-21 once. Looked like a fun plane to fly but the cockpit is really cramped. The Lear has a very rakish nose and you almost have to fly with your head canted to one side to clear that windscreen. I think you can tell a Lear pilot from a copilot by which direction their neck is bent.
We could even do this mission in the KC-135. I once spent a week hauling a 3-star Navy Admiral and his entourage around the country. We could put some airline seats and conference tables in the tanker and make it fairly comfy back there.
It was easy duty. Show up, fly him where he needed to go and take the rest of the day off.
CRAF
These FedEx 777s are part of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet and would be activated in wartime.
Military airlifters tend to be specialized aircraft. They're made to do things that we don't do with civilian freighters like land on dirt strips. Someone once asked why we don't use C-17s in the civilian world. The reason is they're not very efficient.
There's very little market in the civilian world for carrying oversize loads to unimproved airstrips. The features that make a C-17 able to do that make it a very wide airplane that burns a lot of gas just getting from Point A to Point B.
Even an awful lot of military cargo doesn't require that kind of capability. Most things just have to go from one paved runway to another. Kind of like that Cuisinart you ordered from Amazon.
I used to think "Why doesn't the military just buy a bunch of 767s and be done with it?"
The Air Force has 767s, they just don't say "US Air Force" on the side.
It turns out they do have a bunch of 767s. They just happen to say "FedEx" and "UPS" on them. Plus American, Delta, United and whoever is left after the last round of mergers.
This is called the Civil Reserve Air Fleet or CRAF. In addition to the military charters we fly in peacetime, they can commandeer our planes (and crews) in wartime. The CRAF was partially mobilized during Desert Shield back in 1990.
Great, and here I thought I was done with this crap.