Table Of Content

THE AIRLIFT SYSTEM A PRIMER L C R C. O , USAF T OL OBERT WEN T HE NATIONAL military airlift system of the United States and its associated policy-making processes are enormously complex. The components of the system include airlift forces and support units from all the military services and hundreds of aircraft and thou- sands of employees from numerous commercial air carriers. The formulation of airlift policy in- cludes cooperative and adversarial interactions among these military and civilian components and other organizations such as Congress, the De- partment of Defense (DOD), the Department of Transportation, commercial aircraft manufactur- ers, the Airline Transport Association, and many other players. The balkanized complexity of airlift policy-making is evident in current efforts to keep moving forward such major airlift programs as the C-17 and proposals to bring an existing, probably civil-type “nondevelopmental airlift aircraft” (NDAA) into Air Mobility Command (AMC). Each of these efforts involves confrontation and cooperation among numerous institutions and individuals, each with a distinct perspective on the military, political, economic, and technological parameters involved. Given the multibillion-dollar costs of such programs, it is not surprising that this welter of perspectives can render the airlift policy process complex and in- tense—even bitter. In dealing with these complex issues, most airlift policymakers and planners understand that they are dealing with a system of interconnected and interdependent parts. But the stakes and in- Form SF298 Citation Data Report Date Report Type Dates Covered (from... to) ("DD MON YYYY") N/A ("DD MON YYYY") 00001995 Title and Subtitle Contract or Grant Number The Airlift System A Primer Program Element Number Authors Project Number Owen, Robert C. Task Number Work Unit Number Performing Organization Name(s) and Address(es) Performing Organization Air Universitys College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Number(s) Education (CADRE) 401 Chennault Circle Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6428 Sponsoring/Monitoring Agency Name(s) and Address(es) Monitoring Agency Acronym Airpower Research Institute CADRE 401 Chennault Circle Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6428 Monitoring Agency Report Number(s) Distribution/Availability Statement Approved for public release, distribution unlimited Supplementary Notes Abstract Subject Terms Document Classification Classification of SF298 unclassified unclassified Classification of Abstract Limitation of Abstract unclassified unlimited Number of Pages 13 2 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 The balkanized complexity of airlift policy-making is evident in current efforts to keep moving forward such major airlift programs as the C-17 . . . . Each of these efforts involves confrontation and cooperation among numerous institutions and individuals, each with a distinct perspective on the military, political, economic, and technological parameters involved. tensity of the policy process can obscure their systemic termination of appropriate airlift technologies and the perspective and thereby allow decision makers to con- interplay of institutional self-interests in the policy pro- sider proposals or take actions that offer substantial ad- cess, are more complex. Consequently, determining vantages to one element of the airlift system, while si- the net benefits of any effort to improve the effective- multaneously undermining its overall efficiency and ef- ness of a specific airlift component is challenging but fectiveness. The airlift policy and planning communi- not impossible, so long as the overall connections and ties, therefore, need to refresh their understanding of synergism of the airlift system are kept in mind. To the national military airlift system as a system, lest in the end of seeing how the interrelationships of the air- their efforts to improve its individual components they lift system influence assessments of viable policy, this become guilty of robbing Peter twice, to pay Paul only discussion touches on some current airlift policy is- once. sues in the course of discussing the system’s founda- tional tenets. These issues include the role of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), the acquisition of com- The airlift policy and planning communities . mercial aircraft for the military component of the air- . . need to refresh their understanding of the national lift system, and organizational centralization. military airlift system as a system. The Air Mobility System This primer offers a macrolevel vision of how the The present US military airlift system is the prod- airlift system works. Its purpose is to describe key con- uct of at least six decades of doctrinal, operational, cepts and component interrelationships of the US na- organizational, and technological development. Even tional military airlift system to provide a baseline for in the early 1920s, a few individuals were thinking assessing the systemic advantages and disadvantages and sporadically writing about the military potential of making changes to the missions or composition of of air transportation. By the early 1930s, the appear- those components. The core concepts and interconnec- ance of two-engine, all-metal transport aircraft such tions of the airlift system—mission, the focus of airlift as the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2 prompted a sus- policy, component roles, and organization—are reason- tained discussion among senior Army Air Corps lead- ably easy to describe. Secondary issues, such as the de- ers about the technological, operational, and organi- 3 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 zational options of military airlift. World War II estab- Air Command (SAC) mediumbomber units to over- lished the importance of airlift to all military services, seas bases in the event of nuclear war. MAC, which and it encouraged a number of major US commercial superseded MATS in 1966 as the US military’s princi- carriers to expand their overseas operations and acquire pal operator of global airlift forces, concentrated on long-range transport aircraft identical or at least simi- reinforcing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization lar to those operated by the military. For airlift policy, (NATO) in the event of war—a requirement that once the first three postwar decades featured sustained ef- called for the movement of 259,000 tons of personnel forts by a greatly expanded host of military and civil- and materiel, including seven divisions and 23 tactical ian individuals and institutions to quantify and provide fighter wings, from the United States to Europe in 10 forces to serve the airlift requirements of the services, days.5 Thus, the fundamental definition and structure to divide airlift responsibilities among the military and of the military airlift mission has remained constant civilian organizations available to move them, and to for 50 years, though the actual “baseline” lift require- properly organize military airlift forces in ways that ments established to guide force-structure planning optimized the advantages of centralized management have grown steadily. and decentralized operational command. By the Determining the scale and composition of baseline mid-1970s, these efforts had produced a close-coupled airlift planning requirements has persistently challenged system of airlift thought and structure that remains in airlift policymakers and planners. The acute sensitiv- place today, though refined in detail and expanded in ity of airlift operational planning to factors such as time, capability to move combat forces between and within distance, infrastructure, and load configurations ham- combat theaters.l Thus, one should impose change on pers the development of confident and broadly accepted this system or its individual components only with clear estimates of the appropriate size and configuration of reference to its dearly derived general wisdom. the airlift fleet. Even minor changes to any one of these The basic mission of US military airlift forces is factors in a planning scenario can drastically alter the straightforward: to move by air—in the words of a daily capacity and routing of an airlift movement and Military Airlift Command (MAC) slogan— can thus alter the characteristics and size of the aircraft “Anything-Anywhere-Anytime.” To guide planning fleet, support structure, and even the crew needed to for the size and composition of national airlift forces, support that movement. military planners since the mid-1940s usually have The increasing complexity of national military expressed baseline airlift requirements in terms of the strategies also complicates airlift planning. In the 1950s, number of Army divisions or Air Force squadrons to MATS planners sized and equipped the long-range air- be moved over given distances in a given time. Gen lift fleet to match the distinctly quantifiable mobility Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, commander of the Army requirements of SAC, in the certain knowledge that Air Forces in 1945, proposed that the post–World War national strategy would recognize no higher-priority II military establishment include airlift forces sufficient movement requirement in the event of nuclear war. 6 to move an Army corps anywhere in the world in 72 With similar certitude, MAC planners in the 1970s and hours.2 In more realistic terms, given the capabilities 1980s focused on NATO reinforcement. But in the mul- of air transport aircraft at the time, the US Army en- tipolar confusion of the post-cold-war world, planners tered the 1950s with a stated requirement for enough in AMC, which superseded MAC in 1991, face com- aircraft to lift the tactical elements of an airborne corps peting requirements and high day-today operating lev- in an intratheater airborne operation and to move a els that render strategic priorities difficult to predict single division by air anywhere in the world. 3 By 1956 and baseline airlift requirements difficult to calculate. the Army’s requirement for “strategic” airlift had grown AMC’s “user list” has also increased, as command air- to include the movement of the combat elements of craft continue to support humanitarian missions, for- two infantry divisions weighing 11,000 tons each any- eign military forces engaged in peacekeeping opera- where in the world in 28 days. 4 The Air Force, mean- tions, and a host of other users. while, focused the force structure and training of its The steady growth and increasing complexity of major, long-range airlift command—Military Air the airlift requirement infuses airlift planning with three Transport Service (MATS)—on deploying Strategic noteworthy tensions. First, airlift planners face an ex- 4 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 pensive version of the “closet syndrome.” That is, no ally vary greatly. Aircraft loads in support of a joint matter how much airlift capacity they create, there is task force deployment might include troops, aircraft always demand for more. Although overall US munitions, rations, bulk liquids, medical supplies, sat- long-range airlift capacity has grown more than ellite downlink stations, armored fighting vehicles, ar- twentyfold since the early 1950s, the relative gap be- tillery pieces, tents, computers, and a host of other tween airlift requirements and capabilities seems hardly things. Some of these loads might be destined for de- to have narrowed. veloped, international-class airfields, while others To a great extent, the steady growth in the US might be dropped or unloaded at “terminals” ranging military’s demand for airlift stems from the increasing from rough clearings to small regional airfields with importance of airlift to successive national military relatively short runways and limited taxi and parking strategies. The role of MATS in support of the strategy space. No single aircraft type can efficiently carry all of massive retaliation in the 1950s, for example, was these loads, over all routes, into all possible terminals. to move SAC at the outbreak of a nuclear war. In 1960 An efficient airlift fleet, therefore, must be composed this mission called for 384 sorties—a number roughly of several types of aircraft. corresponding to MATS’s strength in heavy cargo and Airlift planners have recognized the need for air- cargo-convertible aircraft.7 Under the strategy of flex- lift fleets of mixed aircraft types at least since the out- ible response in the 1960s, MATS’s planning respon- break of World War II. As a group, however, they have sibilities included much larger and more complex re- always found daunting the problem of determining what quirements to move Air Force tactical units and Army types of aircraft and how many of each should be in- ground forces in response to a variety of planning sce- cluded in the airlift fleet. Generally, the Air Force air- narios. lift fleet after the Korean War included a mix of small, short-range “assault transports” such as the Fairchild C-123; medium-sized “tactical transports” such as the The basic mission of US military airlift forces is Lockheed C-130; and larger, long-range “strategic straightforward: to move by air . . . “Anything-Any- transports” such as the Douglas C-124, Lockheed C-5 where-Anytime.” and C-141, and aircraft drawn from civilian airlines. Assault transports disappeared from the Air Force in- Another cause of the airlift gap has been the grow- ventory by the mid-1980s, their role of forward logis- ing inclination of each service to rely on air mobility tics and short-range airborne and airlanded assault and logistics. Since the early 1950s, the Air Force has largely taken over by the US Army’s fleet of battle- expected to deploy its personnel and units by air, while field airlift helicopters. Also, tanker-transports are now the Army has steadily increased its dependence on air a large part of the long-range fleet, a further example deployment since the early 1960s. Further, in contrast of the complicated problem of force structuring faced to the neatly calculable needs of SAC, Army airlift re- by airlift planners. quirements vary greatly with changing constraints of The high costs of building and maintaining a large, force structure, time, and location. No wonder that Gen multitype airlift fleet present airlift planners with the Curtis E.LeMay, Air Force chief of staff, complained additional frustration of knowing that they have little to Congress in 1963 that the inclusion of limited war hope of actually acquiring a fleet large and diversified and counterinsurgency wars as airlift planning factors enough to move all possible requirements with maxi- had created an airlift deficit, primarily because “Army mum efficiency. For a start, no airlift-planning baseline airlift requirements continue to grow.” 8 has ever stood or is likely to stand the tests of changing The magnitude and complexity of the airlift re- national strategies and growing user requirements long quirement also challenge planners in their efforts to enough to allow the major operating commands— determine proper characteristics and mix of transport MATS, MAC, Tactical Air Command (TAC), and now aircraft in the airlift fleet. Within a given airlift require- AMC and Air Combat Command (ACC)—to tailor the ment, the characteristics of individual loads, distances airlift fleet to match it. Moreover, since the late 1950s, flown, nature of destination airfields, and times avail- the high-end airlift-planning baselines always exceeded able to complete or “close” specific movements usu- Congress’s ability or even its willingness to purchase 5 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 an appropriate fleet of aircraft. Expensive transport air- scarcely considered actual or potential requirements craft compete for budget money with other “big-ticket” since he believed that, whatever they turned out to be programs, such as fighters, bombers, tanks, missiles, on paper, those requirements would call for a C-5 fleet and ships. Historically, these combat systems have had larger than the Air Force or Congress would be willing a high priority and, as a result, the military has funded to buy.10 Similarly, the 66 million ton-miles-per-day major air transport programs only when the existing (MTM/D) airlift capacity target of the Congression- airlift fleet is decrepit or when a major shift in national ally Mandated Mobility Study (CMMS) of 1981, which security policy, such as the adoption of flexible response guided MAC long-range airlift planning for a decade, in the early 1960s, demanded improved airlift forces. 9 represented “only about half” of what Shea considered Even in those cases, the capabilities of the airlift fleet the real requirement. MAC and DOD accepted the 66 never equaled the air transportation demands antici- MTM/D figure, Shea reports, because it was “a rea- pated in “worst-case” war plans or other expressions sonable and attainable” number, in terms of the forces of the baseline planning requirement. required to meet it.ll The drafters of the CMMS im- These three tensions—high demand, fleet structure, plicitly acknowledged Shea’s assessment by propos- and budget—impose a pragmatic focus on the process ing an airlift capacity enhancement that fell short of all of formulating airlift policy, although this slant is not the regional-conflict planning requirements used in always clearly understood or articulated by all partici- their analysis. The 1992 mobility requirements study pants. Realistically, airlift planners and decision mak- by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) more explicitly ex- ers are unlikely to advocate successfully the acquisi- pressed the tension between “real” requirements and tion of a fleet adequate to satisfy the ever growing ton- costs: nage, cargo configuration, and time constraints of all war plans or other baseline requirements. The focus of This mobility requirement is based on accepting no airlift policy, therefore, is not to build an airlift fleet more than moderate risk to the attainment of US ob- that can meet a specific requirement but to acquire the jectives. The moderate-risk capability might not be adequate to support these objectives in some worst case largest and most generally capable airlift force with scenarios. The forces recommended by the Command- the funds available. This is not to say that airlift plan- ers of unified commands normally are based on a ners should not or do not calculate ideal airlift fleets low-risk requirement and can require significantly more needed to satisfy likely worst-case requirements, such mobility assets than are on hand or programmed. In as massive force deployments to regional conflicts. addition, the moderate-risk capability cannot handle a Such calculations are essential to making and evaluat- second, concurrent major regional contingency begin- ing plans for the size and composition of the airlift fleet. ning sequentially. . . . However,the moderate-risk re- But when airlift policymakers actually advocate spe- quirement yields a strategically prudent force that is cific aircraft development and acquisition programs, fiscally responsible.12 they typically reduce—and likely will be obliged to continue to reduce—their estimates of requirements and Further, the inability of existing and programmed mo- force structure to fit budgetary and political realities. bility forces to support simultaneous major regional In other words, effective airlift policy-making involves contingencies (MRC) clearly influenced the recent shift asking for what one can get instead of what one actu- in US national strategy to a commitment to fight ally needs. “near-simultaneous” MRCs. Whatever the desirability Numerous illustrations show how this tension be- of deploying war-winning forces to two major conflicts tween real requirements and politically viable require- at the same time, national airlift (not to mention sea-lift) ments has affected the process of creating airlift policy. capabilities simply will not support such a strategy. For example, John Shea—a senior airlift planner who Recognizing that good airlift policy-making is based served nearly 40 years in MATS and MAC—recalled on pragmatic realism rather than idealistic absolutism that in the mid1960s he and his staff determined the is helpful. Most importantly, recognizing that acquisi- initial size of the C-5A fleet off-the-cuff, settling on a tion programs for US airlift forces must reflect fiscal six-squadron force more for reasons of supportability and political realities—at least as much as they reflect than for meeting specific operational requirements. He stated mobility and other logistical requirements—per- 6 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 mits policymakers to own up to the strategic limita- Force in the mid-1950s only needed to install radio tions imposed by those realities. Acknowledgment of racks and sextant ports in four-engine commercial air- the “delta” between requirements and reality—at least liners to make them ready for transoceanic operations. in classified channels—will, in turn, reduce the likeli- The costs of these modifications were trivial compared hood of military planners and political leaders com- to the costs of maintaining whole aircraft in the mili- mitting to strategies and policies that existing or planned tary fleet for the same purpose. l4 In the mid-1980s, airlift forces simply cannot support. Lastly, understand- MAC planners estimated that reserve airlift capacity ing that effective airlift policy maximizes capacity for was about six to eight times less costly to maintain in the funds available is a requisite to understanding the CRAF than in the military fleet; further, a 1990 study tenets of airlift policy. by the Rand Corporation assessed those costs as “a frac- tion” of those incurred in maintaining the same reserve capacity in the active military fleet. 15 Effective airlift policy-making involves asking for The wisdom of relying first on the commercial fleet what one can get instead of what one actually needs. for routine and wartime reserve-airlift capacity is well established in national-policy documents. In 1955 the Tenets of Airlift Policy watershed Hoover Commission report on government By the late 1930s, when the Army Air Corps be- operations declared that the acquisition of military gan establishing permanent airlift units, American mili- transport aircraft to carry peacetime and wartime loads tary and civilian planners had worked out a policy ap- that could be carried in commercial airliners was tan- proach to the problem of providing as much suitable tamount to “military socialism”—that is, improper airlift capability as possible, within the constraints im- government competition with private industry. l6 Utili- posed by the three tensions of growing requirements, zation of the commercial fleet as the first recourse for expensive aircraft, and low budget priorities. In that military airlift in peace and war was also at the heart of early period, there was no comprehensive, written air- the first presidential policy statement on the subject in lift doctrine. But in scattered writings and early policy 1960.l7 In his national airlift policy directive of 1987, actions, these planners implicitly revealed an approach President Ronald Reagan reiterated the coequal use- to reconciling their conflicting goals of acquiring fulness of the military and civilian components of the enough airlift forces to meet requirements without national military airlift fleet and the policy of utilizing breaking the bank. Their approach was based on four commercial carriers to the maximum extent possible tenets that remain at the heart of airlift policy, their in both peace and war.l8 The logic of this reliance is position secured by a growing body of experience and simple: the commercial fleet is always available, doctrine.13 largely without cost to the government unless the lat- The central tenet of airlift policy is that the com- ter contracts for its services in peace or mobilizes it for mercial airline fleet is the heart of the national airlift war. Military planners would be remiss if they did not fleet. To the extent possible, commercial aircraft should tap the fleet’s capabilities to the maximum extent prac- move military cargo and personnel. Even in the late tical before spending public funds on military aircraft. 1930s, airlift thinkers found the logic of this tenet com- Given the availability and minimal cost of the com- pelling. Above all else, they knew that military airlift mercial fleet, the Hoover Commission implicitly ques- requirements far exceeded the capabilities of any air- tioned the need for more than a residual military com- lift force that the Army and the Navy combined would ponent of the long-range airlift fleet. l9 At the time, the likely buy. Their only choice was to consider civilian primary mission of MATS was to move SAC support airlines a vital adjunct of the military fleet. By the time teams to overseas bases on the outbreak of a nuclear CRAF was established in 1951, airlift leaders realized war. The personnel and equipment of those teams— that commercial carriers were by far the least expen- composed mainly of small vehicles, parts bins, and sive source of active airlift support for day-to-day op- engines—fitted into the four-engine Douglas C-54s, erations and of reserve airlift capacity for wartime mo- C-118s, and C-124s that comprised the bulk of the bilization. Indeed, to provide for mobilization airlift MATS fleet. Since these aircraft were virtual copies beyond its day-to-day operating requirements, the Air of—or, in the case of the C-124, shared the same de- 7 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 sign with—commercial airliners in service at the time, ate at high capacity on the rough airfields typically the Hoover Commission’s question had substance, par- found in forward battle zones. ticularly in the eyes of a budget-conscious Congress Policy also limits the availability and utility of com- and administration.20 Operating airline-type aircraft and mercial aircraft for military airlift operations. As one carrying loads that commercial carriers had declared important limitation, the commander in chief (CINC) their readiness to handle, MATS simply looked like of US Transportation Command can mobilize only the the government’s private airline. first “stage” or segment of CRAF on his own author- The ability of the airlines to supplant MATS de- ity. This part represents about 10 percent of the avail- clined after the late 1950s, when Army long-range or able fleet. Mobilizations of the second and third stages intertheater air mobility requirements became a major of CRAF require tacit approval by the secretary of de- airlift-planning factor. The Army’s requirements in- fense or the president under national security emer- creased the airlift-planning baseline by at least an or- gencies of increasing gravity. Moreover, American der of magnitude over SAC’s established needs, and military airlift policymakers have been reluctant to use they presented technological and doctrinal barriers to civilian airline crews in situations fraught with more movement by commercial carriers. Many Army cargo than minimal risk of enemy attack or other operational loads simply did not fit or could not be loaded easily hazards. From habit of mind and the contractual provi- into aircraft designed for commercial operations. Com- sions of the CRAF program, policymakers generally mercial airliners are designed primarily to produce have assumed that airlines will not accept even moder- maximum profit on developed route systems terminat- ate risks to their aircraft and that civilian crews are less ing at modern airfields designed for their use. Conse- obligated and less likely than military crews to risk the quently, the fuselage of a typical long-range commer- dangers of active areas of combat. A Rand study of cial aircraft is long and narrow to maximize seating CRAF operations during the Gulf War gave credence and cruising speeds. Its wings typically are mounted to these concerns, reporting that “morale suffered [and] through the lower fuselage to improve aerodynamics volunteerism fell in some [CRAF] companies” in the and to save weight by allowing the wing support struc- face of Scud missile attacks on Riyadh and Dhahran, ture to carry simultaneously the weight of the aircraft, Saudi Arabia. Asserting the importance of providing its engines, and its landing gear. One consequence of CRAF crews with adequate chemical-defense clothing this low wing design is that it places the payload deck and training, the Rand study pointed out that “because of the typical commercial aircraft 10 or more feet above crews fly voluntarily, any real unease over personal the ground. In concert, these features make the typical safety could significantly impact crew availability.” 2l commercial aircraft a profitable carrier of passengers In graphic terms, therefore, the theoretical upper lim- and package cargo. But they also sharply limit the size its of the commercial air transport industry to support and weight of military vehicles and materiel that a com- military airlift requirements are demarcated by either mercial design can carry, as well as its ability to oper- a technological or policy “cut line,” whichever is more restrictive (fig. 1). Figure 1. Notional Requirement and Commercial Cut Lines 8 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 Though notional, figure 1 suggests that policy es- transport aircraft of equal attractiveness to commer- tablishes the most restrictive cut line on the US cial carriers and airlift planners. The conflicting de- government’s ability to utilize commercial aircraft for sign parameters of commercial economy and forward military airlift. That this situation is currently the case military operations doomed all such efforts. 24 Begin- is implicit in proposals to equip some portion of AMC’s ning in the mid-1970s, MAC used financial incentives fleet with NDAAs. If these proposals do lead eventu- to encourage CRAF carriers to install additional cargo ally to the acquisition of minimally modified features in their new jumbo jets. This initially promis- commercial-type aircraft for the military fleet, then ing program fizzled out in the early 1980s, though not clearly the military is being equipped to carry an in- before prompting several CRAF carriers to buy a total crement of the overall airlift requirement that is “CRAF of 21 cargo-enhanced Boeing 747s and two Douglas compatible.” Such a violation of the spirit and logic of DC-10s. national policy to maximize use of the commercial fleet In combination, the cost-effectiveness of the com- can make sense only in the context of a lack of confi- mercial fleet and its inability to carry all military loads dence in the timely availability of enough appropriate in all circumstances lead to the second tenet of airlift airlift from CRAF. Such a lack of confidence is justi- policy: The role of the military component of the air- fied, of course, by the formal and informal limitations lift fleet is to do what commercial transport aircraft or on CRAF mobilization. Technology cannot be the lim- civilian aircrews cannot or will not do. Given the high iting factor, since materiel that will fit into a costs to the government of acquiring, maintaining, and commercial-type aircraft with the AMC patch over its using military airlift forces, any acquisition of such door will fit into a similar aircraft with a CRAF airline’s forces to do things that relatively less expensive com- logo on its tail, particularly if that aircraft was modi- mercial carriers could do would be fiscally irrespon- fied to NDAA standards. sible. Accordingly, by the late 1950s, Air Force lead- Unfortunately, if the effort is to minimize the costs ers recognized that military airlift forces were justified of the airlift program, knowing that utilization of CRAF only when they were needed to support “requirements is more restricted by policy than by technology does which because of their nature or the nature of the mis- not open a clear path to solving the problem. Most im- sion to be supported must move in military operated portantly, the restrictions of CRAF mobilization are aircraft.”25 Called “hard-core” missions in the late entrenched deeply in national policy and experience. 1950s, the national airlift policy of 1987 described these Even before World War II, some military thinkers pro- missions as “requirements [which] must move in mili- posed militarizing the civil airlift reserve so that air- tary airlift manned and operated by military crews be- line aircraft, personnel, and equipment could be mobi- cause of special military considerations, security, or lized directly under government control. Senior mili- because of limiting physical characteristics such as size, tary and government leaders, including President density, or dangerous properties.” 26 Logically, such Franklin Roosevelt, rejected this option during and af- missions would include (1) critical missions in the early ter the war as unfair to the airlines and inefficient in phase of an emergency, (2) classified or diplomatically comparison to contracting for commercial airlift ser- sensitive missions, (3) tactical combat missions such vice when needed.22 Accordingly, CRAF was estab- as airdrops and flights into airfields in forward combat lished in 1951 on the basis of voluntary contractual zones, (4) operations into airfields not suitable or ar- relationships between the government and participat- eas too dangerous for civilian crews and aircraft, and ing airline companies.23 Voluntary contracts remain (5) missions to carry loads that were too big or heavy the foundation of CRAF, though—in net effect—such for standard airliners to carry. Since such missions are arrangements limit the government’s ability to send features of most major war plans, they assure the ex- civilian crews and aircraft into danger. istence of the military component of the national air- Similarly, efforts to increase commercial industry’s lift fleet, though in a size and composition based on technological ability to carry military loads have met supplementing the commercial carriers—not on pre- little success. Since the late 1940s, for example, Con- empting their role in the airlift mission. gress and the military failed in several attempts to fi- The supplemental role of the military component nance or encourage the development of civil-military of the airlift fleet underpins the third tenet of airlift 9 AIR POWER JOURNAL FALL 1995 policy: The military component should be equipped 1950s, such a perception of the military component will with aircraft specifically designed for its role. As rough likely lead to strong pressure to resume its proper role cousins of the commercial component, the military of operating forward of the commercial component’s component’s aircraft should be capable of moving more doctrinal and technological cut lines. Therefore, mili- troops and materiel into forward terminals, such as tary planners contemplating expedient purchases of parachute drop zones and airfields, than could their commercial designs to rectify the military component’s commercial equivalents in a given period of time. Con- near-term shortfalls in capability should first contem- sequently, military transports come with payload decks plate the long-term economic and political implications that are relatively shorter, wider, and stronger than those of such actions. in commercial transports of equivalent weight and en- The fourth tenet of airlift policy is that airlift op- gine power. Typically, military transports also have erations represent a continuum that should be under large cargo doors at the rear and, in some cases, at the the operational and administratlve direction of a single front of their payload decks, which are usually situated command. This tenet was not always obvious to se- at truck-bed height to further accelerate cargo opera- nior policymakers or even to airlift practitioners. At tions at austere locations. Such low decks require that the beginning of World War II, the military established most modern military transports have high-wing de- numerous airlift organizations and placed them under signs. Moreover, such aircraft usually are equipped with the direct operational control of the specific organiza- high-flotation landing gear mounted directly on or un- tions and commands using their logistic services. Al- der their fuselages for strength and enhanced ground most immediately, however, some airlift thinkers rec- maneuverability during operations at less-developed ognized that these arrangements created duplications airfields. Taken together, these cargo and structural of effort, particularly in long-range operations, and that features enhance the ability of military transports to they undermined the overall flexibility and effective- move a lot of “stuff” into rugged places quickly, even ness of the national airlift effort. In 1948 Secretary of as their incumbent weight and aerodynamic penalties Defense James E. Forrestal took the first step toward render military transports generally unprofitable in reducing airlift duplication by consolidating the Army’s commercial operations. Thus, as frequent failures to Air Transport Command and most of the Navy’s Na- produce civil-military transport aircraft attest, the tech- val Air Transport Service into MATS. 27 A DOD direc- nological requirements of the two types of operations tive of 1956 assigned virtually all remaining Air Force call for distinctly different families of aircraft. and Navy long-range air transports to MATS, which In addition to technological considerations, eco- then became DOD’s single manager for airlift. 28 The nomic and political reasons exist for equipping the operational experiences of the Vietnam War and the military component of the national airlift fleet only with Israeli airlift of 1973 convinced many senior US mili- specialized aircraft. Economically, there is little justi- tary leaders that the remaining organizational separa- fication for equipping the military with aircraft types tion of Air Force theater and long-range airlift forces that commercial carriers can make available to the was an expensive anachronism in light of their over- military under contract at less cost. Moreover, any sub- lapping operations, aircraft fleets, and capabilities for stitution of commercial aircraft for specialized aircraft mutual augmentation. Accordingly, Secretary of De- in the military component’s fleet ultimately undermines fense James R. Schlesinger placed virtually all Air the military’s ability to carry loads to places where Force transport aircraft under MAC in 1974. 29 commercial carriers cannot go. In other words, equip- Airlift consolidation greatly improved the economy ping the military fleet with airliners undermines its and operational flexibility of the national airlift sys- unique flexibility—its reason for existing. Thus, equip- tem. First, consolidation brought most of the Air Force’s ping even a portion of the current military component responsibilities as a military service to organize, train, with commercial aircraft eventually will place it in the and equip airlift forces under the authority of a single unenviable political position of MATS in the 1950s steward—the fourstar commander of MAC. Among his (i.e., it will come under criticism for looking and oper- important duties, the MAC commander was empow- ating like a government-owned competitor with the ered to consolidate and service the requirements of all commercial airline industry). As was the case in the airlift users, develop plans for new aircraft and force