Logistician’s Nightmare: Orlando, February 19, 2010—Gen. Duncan McNabb said US Transportation Command has made great strides in delivering additional troops and cargo to Afghanistan, despite that country’s landlocked location and tough terrain, not to mention its “very interesting neighbors.” Speaking at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium, McNabb said normally airlift would deliver about 10 percent of cargo destined within a combat theater, but in Afghanistan that number is between 20 and 30 percent. “When you think about the importance of air [in Afghanistan], it’s huge,” he said. Complicating things further, he said, is the fact many forward locations lack suitable airfields, but improvements, such as runway matting, concrete ramps, fuel pumps, and cargo loaders, are being made. (Meanwhile, airdrops jumped considerably last year.)
Unlike nearly every other innovative technology throughout history, Maj. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt believes the space enterprise emerged backward. “Every other domain started with an entrepreneur who built something,” Burt, the special assistant to the Chief of Space Operations, told an audience at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.