MILITARY AIRLIFT MILITARY
platform will be rugged enough to get in and
out of small unprepared austere locations with
a meaningful payload and a high probability of
survival in contested areas. Such a machine
would also be able to carry diplomatic mail
between capitals and be easily transformed
into a hospital or CASEVAC platform. The
ability to drop paratroops and deploy special
forces would be good, as well as being able
to perform a search and rescue role with the
addition of roll-on/roll-off special mission
equipment. Manufacturers are happy to provide
all or some of these capabilities at a price.
There was little call from the military for a single-
role aircraft operated by one country, with 57%
saying it was their lowest priority. However, a
surprising 26.3% speci ed an aircraft operated
in that manner as their priority. It may perhaps
be that in that case respondents were thinking
of long-range airliner type machines for hub-to-
hub operations, but the survey does not make
it clear.Most nation’s air forces own a eet of
transport aircraft. That would seem to be the
situation described by the option for single-
country, multi-role aircraft. Answers to the
preference of this setup were more ambiguous,
with 15.8% saying it was their priority, but
second and third places ascribing it 36.8%
and 31.5% of the vote. Only 15.8% thought it
was the worst option. This may seem strange,
but it should be borne in mind that although
aircraft may be owned by one nation most
countries operate as part of a coalition or
an organisation such as NATO or on behalf
of the UN, so they maybe transporting men
and materiel on behalf of other nations. Theoption for formal multi-country, resource-
pooling wasn’t very popular either, with only
15.8% of respondents electing for that mode
of deployment as their rst choice, the same
number as those who made it their last. Second
and third choices were very close at 31.6% and
36.8% respectively. The reluctance to choose
this option probably re ects the reality that this
situation already prevails, as explained above.
The nal option, multi-country, interoperable
craft, got most votes (42.1%). This seems to
be the coming thing. It allows countries to use
a capable modern transport eet that perhaps
could otherwise not afford it whilst sharing the
cost with other nations. Perhaps the rst recent
example of this was the NATO arrangement for
E-3A Sentry airborne early warning and control
aircraft. Such a system spreads the load of
maintaining and running an expensive eet and
allows participating nations to contribute when
they could otherwise not. It also means that the
host organisation has access to valuable assets
individual nations could never have provided.
That was the idea behind the Strategic Airlift
Capability (SAC), a consortium of 12 nations,ten of which are members of NATO plus Finland
and Sweden, which are Partnership for Peace
members. SAC pools resources to operate three
C-17A Globemaster III aircraft for joint strategic
airlift missions. The idea has been continued
with the proposal for a Multinational Multi-Role
Tanker Transport (MRTT) Fleet jointly owned and
operated by a consortium of European nations.
To date, two A330 MRTTs have been ordered
by founder member the Netherlands, where
the aircraft will be based at Eindhoven Air Base
and Luxembourg. Recent joiners Germany and
Norway have pledged to buy ve more jets,
with the possibility of four more. It is clear from
the survey that such joint initiatives are seen as
the way to go from a military perspective, but it
should be remembered that of the 207 entities
surveyed 50% came from Europe.
As with any such survey there are aws and
questions one would have liked to have asked,
which is the point of the conference, but it
certainly provides food for thought.
Military Airlift 2017 is on September 26–26,
at the Pestana Chelsea Bridge Hotel,
London. http://www.militaryairliftevent.com2
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