Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
GalaxyFlyer wrote:Some erroneous assumptions there. High wings do facilitate loading and unloading rolling stock, bulky, oversized pieces, but only tactical lifters use unprepared, not strategic ones. The only example of truly unprepared Ops was the IDF during the ‘73 war when they used El Al 747 to lift troops into the Sinai on a salt pan. Troops slide down slides, the throw slides overboard and departed with gear down. Desperate times.
C-5s never did unprepared operations, the C-17 rarely, the C-130 more normally. There’s a lot of concrete in the world now compared to 1970. When Clinton visited FRY, he flew on AF1, a C-17 with some provisions for security and communications. Planes are required to use “long” runways, just prepared surfaces with enough weight bearing capacity and length for the take-off weight. Civilian airliners have APUs and are self-sufficient for power, starting and environmental control, it’s just MHE that creates problems.
Tankers and AWACS need enough runway for their weights, light weight, not much. They always have bases to operate from with sufficient length. They just need fuel, don’t carry cargo.
UA857 wrote:So do tankers e.g. KC-135 and KC-10 only carry fuel and no cargo onboard?