More lift needed, avers U.S. Transportation chief.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: Strategic airlifts

U.S. Air force strategic airlifters are prepared to conduct "any level of operations" necessary for the next phase of the war on terrorism, according to Air Force Gen. John W. Handy, commander in chief of the U.S. Transportation Command and commander of the Air Mobility Command. In the long run, however, more aircraft will be required, he told National Defense.

The Transportation Command is responsible for strategic air, land and sea transportation of all U.S. military services throughout the world. Headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., it includes the Air Force's Air Mobility Command, the Navy's Military Sealift Command and the Army's Military Traffic management Command. In military parlance, Handy is "dual-hatted;" he heads both the Transportation Command and the AMC.

During the war in Afghanistan, the air-lifters have been able to pace themselves, Handy said, so that he does not see a need to pause for reconstitution. "I would characterize that as nor a high level or serious concern, because we, in fact, have not had to defer major maintenance as we've gone through this entire process," he said. "To the greatest extent possible, we've been able to get aircraft back to home station and [give] appropriate maintenance.

Thus far in the war, Handy said, the air-lifters have performed "extraordinarily well," in transporting personnel, equipment and supplies. "All of the feedback that we've hand from the other CINCs (war-fighting commanders) has been glowing," he said.

Because Afghanistan is a landlocked country, almost everything that the war fighters initially needed went in "almost exclusively" by air, he said. During the first six months of the war, U.S. transports:

* Flew more than 2,900 airlift missions, exceeding 70,000 hours in the air.

* Moved more than 46,000 troops and 90,000 tons of cargo.

* Delivered 2.5 million humanitarian daily rations, 816 tons of wheat and 73,000 blankets to Afghanistan.

During that same period, tankers flew 1,500 refueling missions to help U.S.-based aircraft reach their destinations in Central Asia.

The heavy lifting, he noted, was done by the Air Force's newest transports, the massive C-17 Globemasrer Ills, which flew 47 percent of all airlift missions into the theater. The C-5B Galaxies--which are bigger, but more than three decades old--accounted for 29 percent of missions into the region. Once in-theater, C-5 cargo was transferred to C-17s and C-130s, which could land on the short, austere runways of Afghanistan.

Allies--including British, Belgian, Canadian, Dutch, French, Norwegians and Spanish--also flew air-transport missions, using C-130s primarily, Handy said. The British, he noted, have leased four C-17s.

Commercial air cargo, including Soviet-designed An-124 Condors, conducted 8 percent of the flights, he said. The An-124s, even larger than U.S. C-5s, are operated now by Russian and Ukrainian companies, Handy pointed out.

Just a few years ago, the United States never would have considered using Soviet assets, Handy acknowledged, but he added: "The world has changed. The Soviet Union is dead, and now we even have contacts with businesses in former Soviet...