Interesting argument in the above mentioned release justifying another $250million C17. Surely "twice the distance in three quarters of the time" would require a speed of 2.66 x the Herc's 290kt cruise speed rather than the C17's 450kt? Also most of the recent jobs quoted (recent relief efforts to Queensland,Japan & NZ) don't really seem to require the hugely impressive but expensive capabilities of the C17 and could presumably have been done by a standard civilian freighter or pax a/c at a fraction of the capital & operating cost. I guess the very reasonable argument is that if we've got them, we might as well use them, but to justify adding to the fleet on this basis seems open to question.