Expanding the National Airlift Fleet

The term 'civil-military transport' applies to a broad group of aircraft that serve in both the commercial and military sectors. This thesis focuses on one civil-military transport subgroup; namely, transports designed for the military and marketed by their manufacturers in the commercial sector. While the concept of placing military transports in commercial service has advantages for the National Airlift Fleet; in reality, military transport manufacturers have garnered little success in attempting to market commercial versions of the aircraft. To determine why the lack of success, this study analyzes three aircraft that had or have civil-military potential. The first two aircraft are the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and C-130 Hercules. Both of these aircraft are successful military transports. However, commercial success was achieved only by the latter and only after the manufacturer assumed some of the financial risk. The analysis of these two aircraft centers on the technological differences, political influences, and economic factors that affected the development of each aircraft’s commercial variant.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.