Timothy M Zadalis

Expanding the National Airlift Fleet: The Quest for a Civil-Military Transport Timothy M Zadalis

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.