Airlift Shortfalls Blamed on Aging Aircraft.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Pentagon wants to replace old equipment

Outdated infrastructure, C-5 deterioration contribute to transportation woes

Along-awaited Pentagon study on future military airlift needs should help the Bush administration decide how the nation will cope with growing demands for airlift and with an aging aircraft fleet, said the nation's top military official in charge of transportation.

"The need for airlift is increasing," said Air Force Gen. Charles T. Robertson Jr., chief of the U.S. Transportation Command. Strategic airlift--the capability to transport massive amounts of combat troops, equipment or humanitarian supplies around the world--"is the most talked-about subject by the CinCs [U.S. regional commanders]. ... It is among their top five priorities," Robertson said during a Washington D.C. conference on military airlift, sponsored by Defense Week.

Strategic airlift requirements, which are measured in ton-miles flown per day, were curtailed by about one-third after the end of the Cold War. In 1993, the Clinton administration established a requirement for the United States to have 49.7 million ton-miles of strategic airlift. The standard was based on the U.S. military strategy of being able to fight two regional wars nearly simultaneously.

Million ton-miles per day (MTM-D) is a commonly accepted measure of performance across the transportation industry. It reflects how much cargo can be delivered over a given distance, in a given period of time.

Currently, said Robertson, "we are about 5 million ton-miles per day short." And that shortfall is expected to double to 10 MTM-D because a new study on future air mobility needs, called MRS-2005, will set the U.S. strategic airlift requirement at more than 54 MTM-D. "The MRS-2005 will say that 49.7 million ton-miles is not enough," he said, "so the shortfall would be greater than 5 million ton-miles."

Of the total, the U.S. Air Force must provide 29.2 million ton-miles per day. The remaining 20.5 are supplied by commercial air freighters under the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) program.

The failure to meet the standard set in 1993 can be attributed to inadequate infrastructure--fuel systems and ramps, for example--and the low reliability of the C-5 aircraft, Robertson explained.

The C-5As are showing corrosion and fatigue cracks on the horizontal tie box, which is a "2,000-pound slab of steel that holds the tail together," Robertson said.

Another factor to be considered, he said, is that the U.S. Air Force is replacing 270 C-141 cargo...