Australia and the HLA

Australia is now looking into increasing it’s military lift capacity to incoperate a new and larger lift facility. The planes that are being evaluated for the HLA (Heavy Lift Aircraft) are as follows:

Lockheed C-17 Globlemaster III
Airbus A400M and
Antanov An-124 Condor

Whilest these planes will give a very large lift capacity to our forces, the questions arise:

a) do we really need them?

b) given the current defence expenditure, can we afford them?

c) how many are we talking about?

d) where are they likely to be based?

To answer these, we have to look at the rest of the ADF (Australian Defence Force) and it’s roles over the next 20-30 years.

Do we need them? Yes we do, the current climate troubles as well as the current global security troubles, seem to indicate that such a capability would only go to help in the movement of troops and equipment needed around to these trouble spots for aid and help in civil capacities. We all know that the primary role of the ADF is not really defence but Civilian support and Humanitarian duties.

Given the current defence expenditure, can we afford them? Yes but not in an immidiate term, more a mid term thing and with that will theser systems still be usefull? Yes. Super large transports are very hard to design and produce, thuis the current generation should still be flying by 2020 in new forms.

How many are we talking about? Well to be effective 12 should cover the duties, but 6 is a more realistic view, these planes are very expencive to own and opperate, not to mention the support facilities.

Where are they likely to be based? Well concidering the current line of defence thinking, up around the top end seems practical, Darwin maybe.

Taking all this into account, which plane might best fill the role? The A400M is seriously struggeling to get up and running, the An-124 has been on Australian soil many times and has opperated in the invironments that are similar to our opperational needs, and the C-17 is good but IMHO not fully equiped for our needs.

Comments from you guys?

Scattered Intelligence Agency:- http://www.portalpcs.com/intel