[thedance]

Imagine if there was a country with an "Air Mobility Command" having 50000 airmen and fifty gigantic aircraft (among hundreds of smaller aircraft), each of which can carry 40 pallets. Wouldn't that seem useful at this moment?

[WillPostForFood]

It is happening.

But this week, the White House did get into the shipping business, when the Defense Department sent a C-17 cargo aircraft to an air base in Italy to procure 800,000 swabs from Copan, a medical device manufacturer, and take them to Memphis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/politics/swabs-for-cor...

[m4rtink]

Czech Republic has been doing something similar since about March 19. to get emergency medical supplies (mostly personal protective equipment for medical personel) quickly from China:

https://news.expats.cz/weekly-czech-news/ukrainian-plane-to-...

https://www.nspa.nato.int/en/news/news-20200319-7.htm

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/20/world/europe/20re...

It's using the An-124 cargo planes (100+ ton capacity) via the NATO SALIS partnership (2 planes on long term lease from Ukraine stationed in Leipzig) as well as regular cargo flights, comandeared airliners with boxes on seats an even the few (2?) small airliners owned by the state/army, normally used for officially duties. Apparently even some of the repatriation flights have been used to bring back supplies when possible.

Also some of this material (I suspect where there is sufficient stock for local use available) is now being sent to Spain and Itally, where it is sorely needed:

https://www.radio.cz/en/section/news/coronavirus-czech-state...

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_174623.htm

In any case, USA using airlift to get critical supplies is certainly a good sign! But I'm confused why only now ? It has been clear for at least a month bad things might happen, so why not stock up at least a bit beforehand ?

[Frost1x]

They'd then be competing against the airline industry when they're on the ground and some politicians may lose their some of their super PACs. Imagine how upset all the huge airline investors and corporate heads would be, never mind the pandemic medical urgency that should temporarily supercede these sort of concerns.

[gwright]

The market solution is to just let private cargo companies rent the government's cargo capacity. Even better would be to auction the capacity off to get the best price.

Of course while the left hand is doing that, the right hand can be ordering vast amounts of medical supplies at market rates for delivery as needed.

[cameldrv]

The 50 gigantic aircraft are just the tip of the iceberg. USAF has huge cargo capacity. Most of the tankers have a cargo deck too and they can be used as slightly smaller cargo aircraft.

C-5M: 52 in service capacity 127 tons.

C-17A: 222 in service, capacity 77 tons.

KC-10A: 59 in service, capacity 77 tons.

KC-135: 396 in service, capacity 38 tons.

C-130: 392 in service, capacity 19 tons.

And that's before you start even digging deep into things like the 30 or so VIP transport airliners the Air Force has that can be quickly converted to carry cargo or the dozens of small turboprops and bizjet type VIP transports.

[jhayward]

Would you care to guess what the cost of moving goods via that resource would be? You may be astounded. It's still cheaper and more effective to use commercial, even if the price has gone up.

[thedance]

I'm sure it's amazing but you only get to count the marginal cost of actually moving the material because we already pay all the other costs of the AMC regardless of whether they do any useful service or not.

[jhayward]

Ok, but remember these are the folks who were delivering the $100+/gallon of fuel to FOBs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[jsymolon]

Don't forget to add in the additional flight hours on equipment as an additional cost vs sitting.

[thedance]

They hardly sit. They just fly around for practice if there's nothing else to do. There would undoubtedly be more hours in the air if airlifting equipment from hither to yon, but I doubt there would be more takeoff and land cycles.

[reaperducer]

Wouldn't that seem useful at this moment?

At this moment, yes. But how do you pay for the 50,000 people and aircraft for the 100 years between pandemics?

[thedance]

We already do. It costs a lot but we've been paying it for more than fifty years.