Strategic Airlift en Route Analysis and Considerations to Support the Global War on Terrorism

<p>The Global War on Terrorism has mandated the need for additional global en route airfields. En route airfields consist of bases that arestrategically located at intermediate locations between the Continental United States and the intended theater of operations. These airfieldsserve as refueling crew staging or maintenance stops for strategic airlift aircraft flying transoceanic routes. The focus of this study is toexamine concepts to meet this need and to address important aspects that should be considered in devising new en route strategies. Based onvarious important factors associated with potential en route airfields a goal programming methodology was used to develop an Excel basedtool to aid the decision process for selecting the best future en route airfields and potential infrastructure improvements at those airfields.The factors included in this tool consist of 1)the distance from various origins to the en route of interest and the distance from the en route tovarious destinations 2) the amount of parking capacity available at potential en route airfields 3) the fuel capability present at these airfieldsto support strategic aircraft flow 4) diplomatic relations with the en route host countries 5) airfield distance from coastal seaports and 6) thenumber of strategic aircraft capable airfields within a predetermined range of the potential en route. Using the developed goal program tool25 potential en route airfields used to transit to eight global destinations from ten different origins were studied. With the above factorsassessed and examined conclusions relating to which potential en route airfields would be the most beneficial in fighting the Global War onTerrorism are delineated.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>