MarkD
Sorry, can't help with the detail. Just repeating what the Antonov maquis in Germany is reporting. Someone who should know what they are talking about, a sort of Bosch BEagle you might say, has calculated the cost of providing C160s and was comparing it with the cost of An124 airlift.
Anyway, when did accurate detail come into this question? A DERA/DPA approved An124 solution at a 50% cost saving over C-17s didn't deter the Hoon monster from wasting more than 100 million pounds of our money with his decision on STSA. Plus the fact (that's F..A..C..T) that Boeing confirmed on UK national radio that by the time the C-17 lease is complete the MOD might as well have bought the C-17s. Joined up government? Just some/any government would be useful.
Great aeroplanes, C-17s. Just awful expensive. The point I was making by reference to O'Connel's article was the cheek of Boeing/Lockheed to propose that Europe buys C-17 and C130 because the A400M is not going to make it. This simply ignores the fact that the only way that Europe has gone to war in Afghanistan and various other places over the last decade has been courtesy of the An124. The An124 has delivered almost all the European military equipment into Bagram and Kabul less an unknown amount by C-17. Would be interested to know just how many sorties and with what payload the C-17 has operated?
The other interesting issue was that when the RAF was only prepared to operate into the area with C130 K with full DAS, they were chartering An124's and asking those untrustworthy Ukrainians and Russians who are such a political risk to put their lives and aeroplanes on the line operating into the same destinations.
And a grand job they have made of it too....
Yours
Lybid