Time for a reality check on this thread. The C17 is a strategic military airlifter with tactical capability. It carries (excuse me 99 boys if I am wrong) some 179 000 lb of freight. This tactical capability comes at some significant expense; irrespective of our lease contract, Mr Boeing will ask somewhere in the region of $225 million per copy if you want one - and the State Department will let them sell you one. For that reason alone, each C17 is a high-value strategic asset to the UK; just as we do not fly our Sentry's at 250 ft MSD, we do not need to be flying our C17s at low level - the USAF are getting a total of 120, they can afford to. The aircraft offers us outstanding capability and we should use it for what it was bought for, not tooling around in the UKLFS with a couple of MSPs. However, when the C17 was in development, it was beset with a multitude of problems which took a lot more cash to fix than has been spent on the C130J.
On to our other new military airlifter. BEagle, the troop oxygen lives in the roof and will drop on your head if the crew or the Mission Computer tells it to. As for JAR 25 issues, I understand and agree with your comments. However, we bought the C130J as a tactical military aircraft, not as an airliner. We were under no illusions about what was fitted in the back when we paid the relatively small sum of £34.2 million per aircraft. Sometimes we need to accept that we are a military organisation and that there is a balance between system integrity/safety and military capability.
So, onto the subject of the C130J tactical capability. I won't mention the C17's small HUD, lack of digital map or radar cursor. I won't mention the fact that the C130J radar provides a better ground mapping picture than any other radar in the UK military inventory (from a GR4 nav) - oops don't know what the Apache is like. Admittedly, both aircraft can do IMC, hands-off formation flight. The aircraft does drop troops and they don't hit the side of the aircraft as reported in the Torygraph.
I happen to know some of the boys currently living in appalling conditions in Atlanta doing the C130J tactical workload trial with the Block 5.3 software. They are seeing some outstanding results and the aircraft is very rarely more than 10 sec off TOT despite 10 min rolex calls from AWACS, numerous threat calls (another new one for the C130K) and run-in changes of 90 deg passed at 6 min from the target. The aircraft is operating reliably in mountainous terrain up to 7000 ft which the antique aircraft would not cope with. The aircraft is also looking like it can provide a true IMC drop capability - in the same way as the USAF AWADS aircraft do. Allegedly the procedures are spot on and the fact that the aircraft is operated by only 3 people is not a factor.
Oh well back to your cynical trash - wish I was in Georgia with the Boys drinking Guinness.
[ 30 November 2001: Message edited by: backpocket.com ]