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Aviation History
1996
1996 - 0552.PDF
OEFSNCE Buses to Bosnia As USAF McDonnell Douglas C-17s are withdrawn from Bosnia, assessment of the transport aircraft begins TIM RIPLEY/BOSNIA WHEN THE HARSH Balkan winter halted US Army efforts to bridge the River Sava and troop trains became backed-up in Hungarian marshalling yards, US military planners began to look for alternative ways to get their heavy armour to Tuzla. The answer was based at Rhein-Main airbase, near Frankfurt, in the shape of the US Air Forces's newest transport — the McDonnell Douglas C-17A Globemaster III. During the first four days of January, 12 C-17s, temporarily based in Germany since mid-December 1995, were used to move a full US Army mechanised infantry battalion to Tuzla, including some 28 Bradley fighting vehi cles andM109 155mm self-propelled howitzers. It was the first major test of the aircraft in an operational setting. C-17 crews from the 437th Airlift Wing, based at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, say that the contribution of the aircraft to speeding the deployment of NATO's Implementation Force to Bosnia vindicated die 1995 decision by the US Defence Acquisition Board to give the green light for the USAF to buy 80 more Globemaster Ills. "The C-17 has moved more than just heavy armour," says Lt Col Joe Reheiser, commander of the composite airlift squadron at Rhein- Main. "We moved trucks, heavy containers and bridging units. You can't carry these on [Lockheed Martin] C-130s or [Lockheed] C- 141s, and the [Lockheed] C-5 cannot go into austere strips such as Tuzla or Sarajevo. The C- 17 was the only aircraft capable of flying out- sized cargoes into Bosnia," he says. "This was a great proving ground for the C- 17. It validates the Defence Acquisition Board decision to buy more of the aircraft," says Reheiser. "Originally, we only went over with six aircraft, but then our customer shifted the emphasis from moving cargo by ground to air when they saw what the aircraft could do." Proposals by Boeing for the USAF to buy cargo versions of its 747-400 instead of the C-17 were treated with some sceptism by C-17 opera tors at Rhein-Main. "On one occasion, I watched two Bradleys pull up behind a C-17 and load up on to the aircraft — you could not do that with a Boeing 747," says Reheiser. With only 19 C-17s in the USAF inventory, the deployment of the majority of them to sup port NATO's Operation Joint Endeavor raised the profile of the aircraft considerably, and the 437th Wing personnel in Germany report that the aircraft performed well in demanding weath er and threat conditions. "The aircraft proved very reliable. Things that went wrong were minor and we were able to fix them quickly. There were no show stoppers," says Reheiser. C-17 LANDING RATE From late December, a C-17 was landing at Tuzla, in north-west Bosnia, or at Taszar, the major US logistic base in Hungary, at a rate of one every hour, 24h a day The major limitation proved to be the lack of unloading space at Tuzla preventing more than one C-17- or C-141-sized aircraft being on the ground at a Rhein-Main was temporary home for the C-lls time. Tuzla airbase is still heavily littered with land mines and it is taking time for US Army engineers to complete the task of clearing them and open up more working space. C-17 crews say that they were keen to max imise use of night-time missions into Tuzla because they reduced their vulnerability to Serb artillery, which is within range of the air base. Each aircraft is flown with a fourth crew mem ber to provide an extra pair of eyes to watch for surface-to-air missile threats. Pilot Capt Pat Tibbetts says that the C-17's head-up display proved particularly useful dur ing landings at Tuzla because of the need to reduce stopping distances. Once on the ground, cargoes were unloaded and the aircraft was airborne again within 30min. Anything longer would seriously disrupt the tight schedule for follow-on flights. The age of the US Army's tracked vehicles proved a problem for the C-17 loadmasters because many of them have worn rubber track pads, so wood en planks had to be laid in the cargo holds to prevent the aircraft's floors being damaged. • 36 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 6 - 12 March 1996
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