Joint Civil/Military Cargo Aircraft: Prospects and Current Perceptions

The ACMA (Advanced Civil/Military Aircraft) is conceived as an advanced technology transport aircraft designed from the outset with the potential for fulfilling both the U.S. need for military strategic airlift and the worldwide need for commercial airfreight in the 1990s and beyond. The ACMA, initially called the C-XX, was first described in 1974, and is the subject of a Military Airlift Command Statement of Operational Need (SON) published in 1979. Evidence of the corresponding civil need for a large payload, long range cargo transport has been supplied by the NASA sponsored Cargo Logistics Airlift System Studies (CLASS). The recent preconceptual studies of the ACMA which examine both the technical and institutional issues affecting a joint program indicate that there are no significant obstacles to developing a single, basic configuration, or in administering such a venture. Current Lockheed-Georgia design studies suggest that the ACMA can provide a 30 to 40 percent reduction in direct operating costs and as much as a 50 percent improvement in fuel efficiency compared to contemporary commercial cargo aircraft.