U.S. News: Air Force Tests New Designs For Its Next Transport Fleet.

"AnAir Force C-17 Globemaster evacuated 640 passengers in a single flight from Kabul during the U.S. withdrawal two years ago. The C-5M Super Galaxy, even bigger than the Globemaster, can carry anything in the Army's arsenal -- or the presidential motorcade and helicopter.

The mammoth jets, however, are aging and out of production. That has pushed the Pentagon to start looking at replacements capable of flying vast distances in support of U.S. forces in the Pacific as part of its policy to deter China. More broadly,the Air Force envisages a family of systems including a large new aircraft, small uncrewed delivery drones, gliders, and even space rockets to blast cargo anywhere in the world within minutes.

Air Force leaders are still sketching out requirements for the next generation of airlift planes. They are trying out ideas in an exercise this month across the Pacific called Mobility Guardian 2023 involving 70 cargo and refueling aircraft and 3,000 airmen and troops.

'We'll really test ourselves on how quickly we can move," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.said last week during a confirmation hearing to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

For now, the jumbo jet-sized C-5, which entered service in 1970, and the C-17, which joined the fleet in 1993, form the backbone of the transport fleet. Boeing ended C-17 production in 2015, and the Air Force operates around 220 of them. Lockheed Martin stopped making the C-5 in 2002, and 52 remain.

"Those planes aren't getting any younger because the C-17 was brand spankin' new when I started flying in 1996," said Darren McDew, a retired general who led the U.S. Transportation Command.

The C-5 has doors at the front and the back to enable troops and supplies to be loaded and unloaded at the same time from cavernous cargo bays. 

Like the C-17, it has high wings and four powerful engines allowing them to operate from even small, unpaved runways.

One option is an aircraft with a so-called blended-wing body concept, essentially a flying wing that replaces the traditional tube-and-wings arrangement with a broad fuselage that also provides lift. The design isn't new, but advances in materials and production have brought the aircraft a step closer to reality.

A wing-body offers more interior space to carry supplies or fuel and, with new engines being designed, would provide the range to operate across the Pacific. The Air Force, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit have teamed up to seek proposals for a full-scale demonstration version of such a design by 2027.

Lockheed and Boeing designed the C-5 and the C-17 to supply allied forces facing the threat of the former Soviet Union. Both can cross the Atlantic, make a stop and then fly another 500 miles without refueling.

But the Pentagon has been focusing its planning on China, which the U.S. describes as its prime strategic competitor and the "pacing threat" it must match or surpass in military hardware and preparedness.

While a transport plane resupplying bases in Europe and the Middle East might fly hundreds of miles, the distances stretch to thousands in the Pacific. The new planes will need to be able to land at smaller airports, part of the Pentagon's plan to distribute forces and supplies of fuel and ammunition in the Pacific over a broad area rather than concentrating them in fewer bases vulnerable to Chinese attack.

The conflict in Ukraine is also informing requirements for the new planes, said Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, head of U.S. Transportation Command, which oversees the Pentagon's air, sea and land logistics worldwide.

Van Ovost said the conflict in Ukraine made clear some of the needs for a new cargo plane that would, for example, allow Himars rocket launchers to be unloaded, fired and then flown to another site.

Anticipating the huge revenues to be won designing, building and maintaining new transport planes, the major defense contractors have been pushing designs for years.

Boeing said it has invested in technologies to support a blended-wing design and was assessing future concepts for airlift and tanker requirements. 

Lockheed said it was ready to support the replacement of the airlift fleet and had invested in autonomous systems and communications,as well as aerodynamic efficiency.

Frank Kendall, the Air Force secretary, said a new airlift aircraft is unlikely to be a version of a commercial airliner, such as the Boeing 767 used as the basis for the KC-46A refueling tanker. Existing designs are easily visible on radar and lack defensive systems such as missiles. "It's a fairly wide open range of possibilities," he said. "We may need a purpose-built aircraft and configuration which is much more survivable."" [1]

1. U.S. News: Air Force Tests New Designs For Its Next Transport Fleet. Cameron, Doug. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 22 July 2023: A.4.