What Will Happen In The Western Military Transport Market?

Ask the Editors: The Aviation Week Network invites our readers to submit questions to our editors and analysts. We’ll answer them, and if we can’t we’ll reach out to our wide network of experts for advice.

The C-5 and C-17 are dated, and A400M is too small to compete. What will happen in the military transport market in the West? 

Aviation Week Defense Editor Steve Trimble answers: 

That’s an interesting question. I don’t want to be pedantic, but your question begs another question: What makes you say that the Lockheed Martin C-5M and Boeing C-17 are dated? They are certainly of an older vintage, but it doesn’t seem to me that the majority of the military transport missions have evolved beyond the capabilities of those two aircraft. You are correct that the Airbus A400M is smaller, but I might suggest that’s a feature in many contexts rather than a bug.

In any event, the answer to your question is that I expect more of the same in the military transport market for at least another decade; perhaps some progress will be made on stealthy refuelers and unmanned airborne logistics systems (albeit significantly smaller than the C-5 and C-17). Maybe in the 2040s, we’ll be ready to move to a very different technology for military airlift, including hybrid air vehicles. But anything beyond 2030 is just guesswork at this point.