Zoomie said:
I have serious doubts of the Canadian Forces ever contemplating the idea of purchasing from the CHICOM - communists = bad guys.
Your idea of a Crown Heavy-Lift corporation has merit, and has been discussed on these means in the past. If such a venture were to go forth, why not C-17's or any other RO-RO military aircraft. If the savants at CASR DND 101 had their way, we would be picking up stock piled IL-76's and converting them to western avionics and engines - good thing that nobody important reads their "research".
If the newly minted government wants a strategic presence - we will require an airframe that is being used by other allied nations that are not half a world away. We will need access to someone's simulator (usually more expensive than the actual plane) and have a dedicated parts line and maintenance pool. If this means that the C-17 is the only choice, sobeit.
I had a look at the C-17, and the proposed BC-17X commerical variant just recently. The only thing I would have against a C-17 or a BC-17X proposal is due to costs. The C-17 was not designed to be a cheap plane to build or operate. It was designed to do a job and fuel costs were near the bottom of the list of priorities. The unit price for a BC-17X civilian variant is a little hard to stomach; around $175 million dollars US. Military variants have been quoted to be around a quarter of a billion dollars US. Even the US Military is finding the costs of the C-17 hard to stomach; early build airframes apparantly are getting very clapped out and their airframe life span has been cut short due to the abuse the airframes have gone through, forcing the US Military to search for ways to either rebuild the airframes or purchase new airframes to replace these airframes.
In our theoretical Crown Corporation, a purchase of 4 An-124 Ruslan's would be appropriate. However, there are roadblocks to new airframes, as production halted in 2004 due to lack of parts to assemble new airframes. Apparantly, new build An-124's will cost around $70 to $80 million, if the specifications do not change. However, the price will inflate to rougly $100 million after modernization of the aircraft (building aircraft of 1992 standard does not make sense, so the drawings have to be digitized for higher manufacturing efficiency, and avionics must be newer as well) and designing new engines, according to some officials at Volga-Dnepr, if the airframe uses a reworked Russian engine. Volga-Dnepr also did calculations that reveal it will still be profitable if the airframe costs rises to $250 to $270 million each, if they are forced to use Western engines.
In short, I am left scratching my head as to how to acquire strategic lift capablities. All options for strategic lift is expensive, some even prohibitively expensive. Strategic airlifters can get us there faster, but carry less, while sealifters, while carrying a lot more, gets there much slower. Both options are being considered by the DND, but costs are the main issues.
Leasing the aircraft may be cheap, getting when we wanted is difficult. Assured lease arrangements are understandably expensive. A 2002 DND briefing note stated that, based on the CF's future strategic airlift needs, a charter company would have to guarantee access to two An-124s within 48 hours of a request, and two more within seven days. These aircraft would have to be available for approximately 1,000 flying hours per year. Such an arrangement would cost approximately $8.5 billion over a 30-year period ($280-million annually) - which means that cost wise, it is the same as purchasing 12 A400M or six C-17 aircraft.