Hrkdrivr

No kidding! It's tough to find decent talk radio on digital control head when you have to punch in digits instead of searching the scale with a tuning knob like in Dad's old Caddy.

Hrkdrivr

yeah...you said it...now that IS dirty. Told you it wasn't OK to be "J."

Hrkdrivr

I'm not a nav-basher. I really appreciated having someone at the panel who knew their *stuff*, another set of eyes up in the bubble, someone to work the radios, etc. I wonder how the slick-J pilot's workload has increased for just those tasks without a nav or engineer?

surfnski

"It's not Jay if it's in a 3-way!"

I don't know why I'm singing this right now. Ha!

Ftrooppilot

You got my vote.

MoosePileit

I don't think Lockheed=reliability the easy way, i.e., by design. I'm biased, I was a crew chief on the C-141.

I would love to see a skinny C-17, if it could be done reasonably. Meaning basically a modernized C-141. Same motors as the C-17, maybe derate them to where the temp and P.A. is not a factor if you lose one at v1. Save the core reversing and inflight reversing might not really be needed.

I think that's the size of the A-400M and I think the C-141 was a great sized aircraft. I bet the Airbus folks have screwed up that aircraft by trying to make it do too much like a C-17 with props.

Pull out the stuff you don't really need everyday, like the flap travel and the DLC, keep it a front side aircraft, if it makes sense. Keep the refueling receptacle, if it makes sense, but don't plan on using it much.

If you keep it strong enough to land at max takeoff weight, that's fine, but heavy. Would it need a HUD? Would it even fly airdrop? Might as well- if it could do it frontside maybe the wake issues would be massively lessened.

If you could get the fuel burn down to carry the "typical" 80,000 ish pounds of 11-13 pallets down to the burn of say the MD-11, you'd have something.

alphaone

I have been flying the -17 for nine months and I have about 600 hrs in the jet so far. However I most likely will only get 100 more if that in the next three months due to me being required to focus on my "office job" and not flying trips. My guess is C-5 guys get more hours than C-17 guys because currently they do not have to stop flying in order to spin down for a deployment or spin up after one. Their trips are all long ones with no Airdrop requirement as well and often run past their scheduled return time. New Guard and Reserve guys can probably get the most because they can guard bum and pick up as many trips they want while seasoning. On active duty now a days flying is only part of what you're judged on, with how good you are in the office, how many awards you win, how much you're educating yourself etc. From my understanding, the reserves don't have to deal with that.

KC10 FATboy

Not picking on you, but I find it ironic that someone is comparing fuel burns to the MD-11, an aircraft that was doomed from the beginning due to its inefficiency.

galaxy flyer

Moose

The problem with the C141 was its cross-section, too much new military roll-on, roll-off equipment didn't fit anymore. The A400M has a cross-section closer to the C17 than the C130/C141 cross section.

GF

galaxy flyer

Here's a comparison, the 141 is almost exactly the C130 cross-section