Showing posts with label transport planes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transport planes. Show all posts

Friday, May 3, 2013

Who Quietly Move U.S. Troops And Spies Around The Globe?

The Contract Airlines That Quietly Move U.S. Troops And Spies Around The Globe -- Killer Apps/Foreign Policy

This week's crash of a civilian cargo jet at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan highlights the fact that the U.S. military relies on a private air force to move enormous amounts of supplies and numbers of people around the globe.

The jet that crashed at Bagram (shown above) was a Boeing 747-400 that had been converted from a passenger jet into a freighter for Florida-based National Airlines, one of the many little-known civilian carriers that keep the U.S. military and intelligence agencies supplied around the globe. The plane was said to be transporting five MRAP armored vehicles (which are incredibly heavy) from Afghanistan to Dubai -- a route the airline had been flying for about a month prior to the crash.

Here are just a few more of the many private airlines that serve the U.S. government on a regular basis:

Read more ....

My Comment: Someone has to do this job.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Will This Be The U.S. Military's Future Means To Ship Materials And Soldiers?

A concept of the airship on the battlefield, where it could be used to transport tanks and soldiers directly onto the front line

Thunderbird 2 Flies Again: The Astonishing Airship Set To Revolutionise Haulage, Tourism... And Warfare -- Daily Mail

* The Aeroscraft can carry three times more than the biggest military cargo planes over thousands of miles
* Heavily backed by the U.S. military, it is now at the prototype stage and is set for its first test flight
* It is capable of vertical take off and landing and doesn't even need a landing strip

A radical new kind of airship funded by the US military is about to make its first test flight - and it looks uncannily like the Thunderbird 2 craft from the classic TV show.

The Aeroscraft airship will carry three times as much as the biggest military cargo planes over thousands of miles, use a third of the fuel, and it doesn't even need a landing strip.

It could also have major implications for cargo haulage, and almost everything now laboriously transported across the planet's surface by boat, train and lorry could within years be carried through the skies, its makers claim.

Read more ....

My Comment: It's an old concept but with a modern twist. I wish them well.