CDF tactical air transport

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Air Service tactical transport squadrons provide moderately heavy, propellered-driven airlift for troops in Sober Thought's Land Service. The T-40 turbo-prop is well suited to the task of moving fair numbers of troops and equipment in largely friendly territory.

It bridges the gap between the more manoeuvrable but smaller capacity transport helicopter and the less manoeuvrable but greater capacity strategic transport jet. And identical airframe is used for decidedly different purposes in gunship squadrons.

The tactical and strategic transport squadrons belong to one ordinal number sequence, e.g., 4th Strategic Transport Squadron, 5th Tactical Transport Squadron, 13th Tactical Transport Squadron, 14th Strategic Transport Squadron. Additionally, the aircraft are marked with three letter squadron codes like the rest of the Air Service, with a fourth letter separated by the roundel indicating a particular plane within the unit. The Community Defence Forces raise nine squadrons of tactical transport plane each wave of one hundred million national population.


Command and air crew

The command staff of the squadrons is typical: Chief Lieutenant commander, Lieutenant executive and Warrant Officer senior non-commissioned member, and these three with three others make up an extra flight crew. The composition of the sub-units is also typical: three Flights of three aircraft, a Lieutenant commanding each Flight. Among the six crew on each plane, two are officers (fifteen in the squadron being Vice Lieutenants).

There are six flight crew members: the pilot (Chief Lieutenant, Lieutenant or commonly Vice Lieutenant), the co-pilot (Lieutenant or commonly Vice Lieutenant), the navigator (Vice Warrant Officer or Leading Flier), the communicator (Master Flier), the transport chief (Master Flier), the transport technician (Flier).

Squadrons are only semi-permanently formed into wings, depending on the whims of the Army and Army Air Corps commanders and the task at hand. When they anticipate at least some time in a wing, they combine the ground staff so that the command and air crew make the squadron just a fighting unit and not an administrative one as well.


Ground crew

Of the 165 ground crew, 15 deserve special notice since they are not encountered in many squadrons attached to CDF Land Service armies, corps or divisions. The Supply Detachment, consisting of a Vice Lieutenant and 19 other ranks, serves as the warehousers and loadmasters of these aircraft when they are used to transport materiel instead of muscles.

The Air Maintenance Flight -- consisting of a Lieutenant, three Vice Lieutenants and 86 other ranks -- serves as the refuellers, engine mechanics and airframe mechanics who keep the planes going for the air crew. No artificers are required since transports are unarmed, either flying in safe airspace or escorted by fighters.

In theory, the Administration Flight includes the spare crew led by the command staff. In practice, the flight consists of a Vice Lieutenant and 49 other ranks serving as the cooks, file clerks, medics and administrators who keep people going for the entire squadron.


Tactical transport propellered airplane

The Community Defence Forces' T-40 turbo-prop transport airplane is similar in concept and execution to the real world C-130 Hercules, a fine reliable workhorse capable of landing on rudimentary runways while carrying astonishing loads. Its six crew are organised to make it possible to work in two shifts on long flights, the co-pilot spelling off the pilot, and the navigator and communicator doubling their tasks when alternating duty.

The carrying capacity of the T-40 depends on what one tries to put in it. Common load configurations include: a platoon of armoured cars or light tanks, a platoon of wheeled or tracked armoured vehicles and their crew of about forty soldiers, a hundred infantry on foot, or four intermodal shipping containers. For specialty jobs, the loadmasters in the Supply Detachment can work wonders.

It seems unbelievable that the only other variant of this benign and non-combattant airplane is the much-feared TG-40 gunship (unofficially christened Whistling Death). A silhouette and additional technical details will follow.