In article ,
R. David Steele writes:

| From what I have read, the C-17 should be cost effective. After
| all the design costs are already paid for. And it is far less
| expensive to run than the C-5.
|
| But it it more cost-effective than the Il-76s and An-224s that are
| already in the market? Those have been already built & paid for.
|
|...and flown hard, and badly maintained...

and from what I have heard, very high maintenance per hour flown.
Extremely high cost of up keep, worst than one of the models in
the Swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated!!!!

All very true, and a product of the Soviet maintenance model, where,
say, an engine doesn't get the same level, both in frequency and
depth, of periodic inspection that we use, and it gets pulled off the
airframe & sent of to a factory-type facility for a complete rebuild
much sooner than we would. When you're not fighting a Global War,
that's expensive, and it means that there isn't a lot of support for
numbers smaller than entire Air Forces.

That being said, though, the price of a new-build Commercial C-17
would be pushing somewhere around 300 Million Dollars, or so.
You can buy an awful lot of maintenance with the difference if you're
picking up a used Il-76 from Honest Ivan's VVS Closeout Sales for 5
Million bucks.

But I'd still rather ride in a Boeing.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster