Boeing's weights for the projection of US power

(To Leonardo Chiti)
23/06/17

William Edward Boeing (1881-1956), was born in Detroit, Michigan. After leaving his studies at Yale University, in 1903 he moved to the State of Washington where, in the county of Grays Harbor, he started the business of timber used in construction, in the construction of boats and the first airplanes. In the 1908 it settles in the surroundings of Seattle, in a place crossed by the Duwamish River that along its course houses the plants of the Heath's Shipyard, to which Boeing commissions the construction of a yacht to dabble in river navigation.

In the course of the work, Edward Heath's business will be affected by serious financial difficulties that drag her to bankruptcy. In March of the 1910 Boeing intervenes by detecting its activity and thus becoming the owner of the plant destined to be the first headquarters of the future Boeing Company.

In the 1916 takes off the first aircraft baptized B&W (from the initials of the surnames of Boeing and of the US Navy officer, his partner and friend, George Conrad Westervelt), a seaplane biplane whose assembly had been completed in the hangar built the previous year on the shores of Lake Union, also in the vicinity of Seattle. On July 15 of the same year the two associates founded the Pacific Aero Products Company which in 1917, after Westervelt had left the company, became the Boeing Airplane Company.

Meanwhile, while maintaining the drivers the adventurous charm of "daredevils on flying machines", less than 15 years from the first "flight" (17 December 1903, on the beaches of Kitty Hawk, in North Carolina, the Flyer He rose from the ground a few meters along 36 in 12 seconds and the longest of the other flights made in the same day did not exceed the 59 seconds), which were the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, the aeronautics had already started to a progressive overcoming of its romantic-pioneering character, to assume the traits of a real industry.

One of the first and most influential theorists of air power, Giulio Douhet (1869-1930), had indeed stated: the plant of the aviation industry in Italy did not take place without serious difficulties for two special reasons: 1) the difficulty of creating suitable specialists and workers; 2) the mistaken belief, in which many fell, that building aviation equipment was easy and largely profitable (Paolo Ferrari, edited by "The Italian Air Force: A History of the Twentieth Century", Franco Angeli, 2004).

The trade routes that began to connect the four corners of North America and Europe needed faster and faster airplanes, with greater capacity in terms of load and autonomy, and that involved costs compatible with the profitability of the service. In the 1927 the builder of Seattle founds its own transport company, Boeing Air Transport, which will subsequently be merged into United Airlines and to which the introduction of the figure of "air hostess" is due. The forefather of the category seems to have been Ellen Church (1904-1965), a nurse and the 15 May 1930 began her new activity on the San Francisco-Chicago flight, aboard a BAT Boeing 80 carrying 12 passengers.

The 8 February 1933 records a first technical-design turning point with the flight of the prototype Boeing 247 (photo), considered the first of modern passenger aircraft. This low-wing aircraft, in which the two engines were drowned and equipped with an anti-ice system on the entire leading edge (device also present on cruciform ridges), was conceived in the second half of the 1932 as a derivative of the Model 215 bomber, and it was the forerunner of a series of devices that revolutionized commercial transport in the wake of the Second World War, starting from the Douglas DC-3.

A fortress can certainly serve as a basis for offensive sorties but the fortifications on the bastion front - built starting from the fifteenth century with the general introduction of firearms and equipped with pieces of artillery arranged along the curtains and towers - were mainly a stability factor and a garrison for safeguarding and exercising political-military power. The development of the aeronautical components of the Armed Forces added the mobility to the protection offered by the defensive structures and the mouths of these fortifications, making it an instrument of power projection that best expresses the dialectical synthesis between attack and defense.

Just as the galleon - a typical naval warfare unit of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the ancestor of the late modern age vessels armed with at least 30 cannons - has extended the concept of fortress from the mainland to the sea surface, the large bombers built by Boeing have marked the debut in the air dimension.

The eldest was the B-17 Flying Fortress (photo) whose prototype has risen in flight 28 July 1935 to enter service the following year. Its initial production was limited to forty specimens, and then grew rapidly after the outbreak of World War II, coming to touch only the last two variants, F and G, the 12.000 units. The B-17 constituted the tool for the development of strategic bombardment techniques based also on daytime raids, conducted by increasingly numerous formations. Its defensive features, represented by the 13 armor and 12,7 machine guns by Browning from XNUMX mm, were designed with the intention of being able to go on a mission without the protection of fighters.

Despite the B-17 was in fact of exceptional strength and able to "find your way home" even having suffered serious damage, the high losses of the first sorties, also due to the policy of daytime attacks aimed at greater accuracy in detaching the bombs , led to milder advice and the development of long-range escort fighters among which, as we have already seen, the North American P-51 distinguished itself Mustang.

Although used on all fronts, the B-17, with an operating radius of 3.200 km and a war load of 8 tons of bombs, had its predilection operating area in the European theater, while to meet the US demand Army related to a heavy bomber for the Pacific, the B-29 was developed Superfortress (pictured following on the left), another four-engine with 6.600 km of autonomy, capable of embarking 4,1 tons of bombs and armed with 10 machine guns from 12,7 mm and a cannon from 20 mm.

The first flight was carried out on 21 September 1942 and, as we know, the B-29 was the first nuclear-powered strategic bomber as its fame is linked to the release of the atomic bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki the 6 and the 9 August 1945.

During the Cold War the nuclear bomber symbolized more than any other weapon system (think of the films of the first half of the years' 60, "Dr. Strangelove" and "Fail-safe, Fail-safe", directed respectively by Stanley Kubrik and Sidney Lumet), the atomic nightmare of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), and the first models to fill this role were the Boeing B-50, in practice an advanced version of the B-29 with which it will begin to alternate 1947, and the B-36 Peacemaker of Convair (formerly Consolidated Vultee Aircraft).

Both were soon overshadowed by the first strategic jet bomber, the Examotor Boeing B-47 Stratojet, which debuted the 17 December 1947 in flight and then enter into service in the 1950 and whose most successful version (the E), was built in over 1.600 specimens. It could carry 10 tons of bombs, the maximum speed reached the 975 km / h and the autonomy of 6.440 km was increased with the refueling in flight, characteristic that, together with an arrow wing of 35 degrees and engines in gondolas sub-sea , it was further developed in the transition to the B-52 Stratofortress.

After a double debut with two distinct prototypes, YB-52 and XB-52, respectively, in April and October 1952, the Stratofortress (photo) he joined the USAF in 1955, presenting himself with a length of 49,4 meters, a wingspan of 56,3 and a war load, nuclear or conventional, of over 27 tons. Its eight engines allowed it a top speed of 1.046 km / h with a range of 16.000 km.

The company parable of the Chicago-Seattle builder shows once again how nuanced and porous the boundaries between civil and military production, whose planning and realization fields are interconnected in the generality of the economic-social fabric. This relationship is confirmed also within the scope of activities of large industrial groups, where the dynamic civil-military production does not fail to provide examples of mutual inspiration and fruitful collaboration.

With a fleet consisting of B-47 and B-52, the US Air Force (and in particular the Strategic Air Command), had a formidable nuclear attack force, whose deterrent power had to be based on formations. of bombers always in flight, ready to respond with immediacy and effectiveness in case of atomic aggression by the Soviet Union. This mode of use made the operational capacity of the bombardment flocks even more dependent on the in-flight refueling component, in which the KB-50s were in service and above all the KC-97, the tanker version of the Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter, military transport aircraft in service from 1944 to 1978, and also used as a unit for electronic countermeasures and SAR (Search And Rescue) missions.

These propeller aircraft were by now inadequate and their slowness forced the bombers to refuel at speeds dangerously close to stalling. This problem had been known for some time at the top of Boeing who, at the start of the design of a new jet for passenger transport at the beginning of the 50s, made it possible for it to be capable of operating both in the commercial field and as a military tanker. . The Seattle-based company capitalized on its experience in large jet aircraft gained with the construction of the B-47 which will form the design basis for the 707 (photo), the first large jet passenger aircraft, which debuted in flight on July 15 1954, subsequently achieving great sales success.

Before proposing to the airlines the 707, Boeing secured a quota of orders from the USAF attracting the attention with the Model 367 version Dash 80, suitable for military transport and refueling in flight, operation whose hooking phase was facilitated thanks to the introduction of a rigid probe system operated by an operator in a caudal position, which also allowed a greater speed of fuel transfer.

Three months after the first flight, completed the 31 1956 August, began the deliveries of the series specimens with the designation KC-135 Stratotanker (photo) that appeared with a speed of 940 km / h, a rate of supply between 700 and 1.000 liters / minute (depending on the model of aircraft supplied), and in its 15 tanks could embark 91 tons of fuel (between 114.000 and 127.000 liters depending on the type and composition of the fuel used). With the R version, entered in the 1982 100 t of transportable fuel were exceeded, as well as a maximum of 80 passengers or about 7,2 t of load stowables in the upper part of the double fuselage, while the lower one houses the tanks and the supply.

Being already fully operational, it was ordered in 250 specimens, bypassing the Lockheed L-193, official winner of the 1955 race. The Californian company will take revenge in the cargo version as its C-141 Starlifter, entered into service in the 1965, practically supplant the Boeing C-135 Stratolifter, twin of the tanker and employed in the USAF ranks by the 1962.

Following the successful outcome of the Milestone C certification (initiates production and deployment), which include demonstrations of in-flight refueling of aircraft representing different sizes and operational roles (including F-16 and C- 17), last August the Pentagon gave the green light to the production of the new Boeing KC-46 Pegasus (picture below), already selected in the 2011 by the USAF and whose initial order is 19 appliances for 2,8 billions of dollars, first batch of a total supply of 179 units for a value of 49 mld.

With respect to Stratotanker boasts a significantly higher payload capacity and increased autonomy of 4.000 km, thanks to lower consumption. In July of the 2015 the new Boeing tanker was chosen by the Japanese government for the renewal of the fleet supplied to its "self-defense forces", while South Korea opted for the Airbus A-330MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport) , derived from the A330-200 liner.

On the KC-46 the refueling operator operates from an AROS (Air Refueling Operator System) station, equipped with 3D glasses and a night vision camera. The cockpit is derived from the 787 Dreamliner but the platform on which the Pegasus is the 767-200, model belonging to a series of aircraft for the transport of goods and passengers (with capacity from 181 to 304 seats), which has passed the assembled 1.000 specimens.

The 767 was designed to keep the European Airbus group at a safe distance, which, with its A-300, aspired to undermine Boeing's positions, particularly in the medium-haul market segment. The American company then answered with this aircraft from the fuselage of the type wide body, characteristic inherited from a family of aircraft with military origins.

In the years' 60 Boeing participated in the tender announced by the USAF for a new large transport aircraft that eventually saw the C-5 prevail Galaxy of Lockheed. The executive team of the Seattle company, chaired by Bill Allen, decided then to obtain a large aircraft for passenger transport, thus following the request made in this direction by the "legendary" founder and president of Pan Am, Juan Trippe.

Called Model 747, this aircraft - capable of accommodating 568 people in the 747-400 variant - will found the lineage of the wide body, earning the nickname of Jumbo jet for its dimensions: almost 20 meters in height (like a six-storey building), for 70 in length, with a wide 6,13 fuselage me that exploits the space from the tail to the muzzle, optimized by moving the control cabin and the first class in a superior bridge.

Also known as Queen of the skies, the 747 (whose design father, Joe Sutter, the 30 2016 August 95 disappeared at the age of 101 years), had its share in the space competition between USA and USSR, having been employed in the phases of testing and operational verification of the Shuttle. The first shuttle built was the OV-XNUMX Enterprise, assembled between the June of the 1974 and the September of the 1976 and has carried out the initial tests, concerning the aerodynamics and the electronics, between the 18 February and the 2 March 1977.

The tests, carried out at NASA Dryden Center at Edwards, California, saw the execution of five flights with theEnterprise unmanned and installed on the back of an 747. The same structure was adopted for the second phase carried out in the following months of June and July, with the astronauts on board this time to check the correct functioning of all the Shuttle systems.

Even Moscow for its space program needed a device capable of carrying "a piggyback" the Buran (photo), Soviet equivalent of the Shuttle. The solution was the Antonov-225 Mriya (dream), developed from the four-engine reactor with strategic transport (16.000 km of autonomy), An-124 Ruslan, known in NATO as Condor.

On the An-225 (Cossack according to the NATO name), the wingspan passed from 73,3 to 88,4 meters and the length from 69,1 to 84, the load capacity from 150 to 250 tons and the maximum takeoff weight from 405 to 600, while the crew confirms composed of six members. For the necessary adjustment of power two other engines were added, thus obtaining a maximum speed of 850 km / h, just below the 865 km / h of the Ruslan.

Aviocisterne and large cargo planes are the operational prerequisite for the international projection of the Armed Forces of a great power, so much so that, over a certain level of mobilization, it is resorted to the chartering of private fleets. Being the American Defense, for geographic position and political status of world first power, a great consumer of logistics, the Pentagon is among the most important customers of the transport services offered by the commercial companies.

The network of bases abroad and the sites identified and set up in the framework of pre-positioning programs, must be supplied and from the arrival of the aeronautical industry, the use of military force in the resolution of disputes between powers, has highlighted in numerous occasions the importance of the "avio-logistics" component for the success of their coercive actions or to neutralize those of the counterpart.

As a retaliation to the establishment of a West German government in the areas of Berlin assigned to the United States, Britain and France, the 24 June 1948 the Soviets blocked all movements in and out of the city. Mainly using the US Air Force and the RAF, the Western powers created an airlift with which they supplied their garrisons until the blockade was lifted in May of the 1949.

To give an idea of ​​the size of this effort and of the impression that the Kremlin must have generated, the total tonnage carried by the UN between the 1992 and the 1996 in air transported to Sarajevo (an operation considered to be one of the largest airplanes ever made) corresponded to the amount that was airlifted every month to Berlin: at the height of this enterprise there was a landing in the city (Rupert Smith, "The Art of War in the Modern World", the Mill, 2009).

The total quantity of supplies made to fly in Berlin during the 11 months of blockade touched the 700 million tons *, but on the occasion of the mobilization for the Gulf War of 1991 (articulated in the two operational phases Desert Shield e Desert Storm), the material transported in the Middle Eastern theater from August to December of the 1990, stood at 3-4 times.

For this gigantic demonstration of logistic strength and "war-managerial" capacity, the US Navy and Aviation coordinated their colossal interforces organizational machine according to a specialization dosage that involved the second transport of almost all personnel, while the first transferred 80% of the vehicles and materials to the area.

In his autobiography, the then head of the US Army's General Staff, Colin Powell, reports a description of what it means to set in motion what he himself calls the American military leviathan.

The 6 August 1990, four days after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, were already on alert: the 82xima airborne division of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the headquarters of the 3 Army Corps in Atlanta, in Georgia, and the first hunting tactical squadron of the base in Langley, Virginia. However, it was not possible to send a paratrooper even on a mission without passing through the Military Airlift Command: the Federal Express of military transport.

The MAC is part of the TRANSCOM (Transportation Command), which coordinates the military transport summits of the four armed services (US Navy, USAF, US Army and USMC), and from its headquarters at Scott Air Base, Illinois, orders for the MAC centers of the two coasts: the air base of McGuire, in New Jersey, and that of Travis, in California.

The 80% of the planes that make up the fleet belonging to the MAC is permanently in flight, when a priority order of mobilization is spread each of these devices must land at the nearest terminal, land the load and return to its base. Everything is constantly monitored by Scott's control room where, among other things, each aircraft is aware of the load being transported, the fuel available, the status of the maintenance program and the crew composition.

With the sending in the sky of each vehicle equipped with wings, the operation of the MAC fleet passed from 80 to 100%. More than sixteen thousand paratroopers from the 82sima airborne were expected to ascend on the C-141, which ammo, spare parts, maintenance material, all that is needed in action at a fighter squadron, were loaded on the gigantic C-5 Galaxy that tankers took off to supply the F-15 en route to the Gulf. MAC had also engaged dozens of airliners to complete the airlift ("An enfant du Bronx", Odile Jacob, 1995).

The latest arrival of Boeing in the segment of strategic transport is the C-17 Globemaster (photo), brought in dowry by McDonnell-Douglas with the merger-acquisition of 1997. Its origins date back to the 70 program called AMST (Advanced Medium STOL Transport), with which the USAF aimed to equip itself with a medium-sized device, with short take-off and landing, to replace the older series of Lockheed C -130 and C-141.

For the award they had competed precisely the companies of Seattle and Chicago-St Louis with the respective prototypes, YC-14 and YC-15, and will be the latter to tick it with the final designation C-17. The first flight of this multipurpose quadrimotor was the 15 September 1991, while the entry into service dates back to 14 July 1993, at the air base in Charleston, South Carolina, and the first squadron was formed in January 1995. The assembled units were 279, of which 224 acquired from the USAF, and the last one was delivered to Qatar, before the closure of the 2016 line in January.

With its 82 tons of payload the C-17 has been used in all the conflicts that have involved the USA in the last 20 years, and in the area of ​​the Sahel (particularly in the north of Mali, near the area known as "the three borders ", Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger), provides logistical support both to the UN MINUSMA mission, made up of more than 12.000 men, and to the French one started in 2013 as Serval and became the following year Barkhane.

The latter still sees deployed around 3.500 men of the big man died, whereas since March, Germany has brought four helicopters to the area Tigre (photo), which are added to as many NH-90, and some hundreds of men for a total of about 1.000, which makes the Bundeswehr a key partner of the MINUSMA contingent, thus strengthening the Franco-German component of the international presence in all of this 'area.

For each State, the acquisition and maintenance of the world power rank can only pass from the capacity of action of its military apparatus to any important scenario of the world chessboard. Notwithstanding that no country (including the United States), can do without a network of alliances, the projection device of the US Armed Forces has always been an essential prerequisite for the American international leadership, in which the airborne component plays a role key in terms of promptness of use and versatility of the risk guidelines.

Moreover, as the memories of former General Powell teach, "the boots", together with the necessary means and materials of support, must still be transported (and supplied) "on the ground", and this even when one has the advantage geographical - accompanied by the inevitable direct exposure to the reverberations of the related sources of tension - of greater proximity to the potential intervention theaters located in the crisis of the Greater Middle East, from North-West Africa to Pakistan.

The world aerospace market has long been characterized by the Boeing-Airbus dualism, and in fact the Toulouse group represents the most successful European initiative not only in the industrial field but also in the perspective of a common defense. It is not by chance that in the recurring exhortations for a greater concentration of productive capacity also in the other dimensions connected to the military activity, the corresponding fees are invoked: "Airbus dei mari" and "Airbus terrestre".

The latter represent an inaggirable objective for the acquisition of what is called EDTIB (European Defense Technological and Industrial Base), but for the translation in operative terms, an adequate industrial base must be matched with the corresponding strategic and management processing capabilities. managerial-organizational, and this implies organisms of centralization of the political decision and of the chain of command of the military apparatus.

In the USA, the State Department (in the photo the QG), owner of the foreign policy with the Secretary of State at the top, and the Treasury Department, were established in 1789, while the Defense Department dates back to the National Security Act of 1947 (a which also gave birth to the CIA, the National Security Council and the US Air Force), which made permanent the Joint Chiefs of Staff created in 1942. All at 171 and 160 years from the Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 and the Constitution of 1787.

As patience may require the process of continental unification (as Helmut Kohl did not fail to point out), today's framework of international relations does not offer all this time to the Old Continity. Furthermore, among the institutions that are regularly trying to revive the constitution in the EU, together with an Army and a Ministry of Defense, must necessarily also include a European TRANSCOM.

 

*The quantity of airborne refueling during the airlift over Berlin is expressed in "miles-tons", a typically Anglo-Saxon unit of measurement for air transport, in particular in the United States.

(photo: Boeing / US Air Force / Bundeswehr / US TRANSCOM / web)