Civilian Practices
I remember hearing a story that when the FSTA project was in it's infancy, a civilian aviation consultancy was hired to explore the concept of leasing aircraft to replace the VC10 and TriStar. They examined the flying programme and pronounced that they could redesign it such that the MoD would need 1.8 aircraft. Of course they had not factored in all the concurrent tasking and had not appreciated that some aircraft and crews are still doing their job when they are not flying, by holding a readiness state.
SS is quite rightly points out that the C-130 is a world away from airline operations, but it is also worth bearing in mind that the much-maligned shiny/Strat AT fleet consists of only 3 aircraft. The rest are also tankers, a role that also has unique facets, with no civilian equivalent.
I hope you get your extra frames, they are going to be needed as A400M tries to shed it's excess 12 tonnes.