Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF)---Do We Still Need It?
Abstract
While always maintaining a core of militarily controlled transportation assets throughout its history, US policy has been to rely on the nation's commercial transportation industries to make their personnel and equipment available to the Department of Defense, should the need arise. The first extensive use of these assets came in 1991 with Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. For the most part, the system worked well with some minor problems. However, the world has changed since then and the question arises, can we continue to rely on civil sector augmentation to provide such substantial amounts of lift capability? In light of fiscal realities, can we afford not to? What actions and policy changes are needed to maintain the viability of commercial transport augmentation in the future? The military and industry have been working together to introduce new incentives to ease the burden for the carriers and maintain CRAFs viability in the future. This SRP will look at the history of the civil reserve air fleet; its success and lessons learned from Desert Shield/Storm; current DOD requirements for airlift; changes that have occurred in the airline industry which effect their participation in the CRAF program; and recommendations of changes needed to keep the CRAF program viable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA308625
Entities
People
- Marc S. Howard
Organizations
- United States Army War College