Airlift tends to get a low priority in peacetime, but that changes when conflict begins.
I n 1908, the Army contracted with the Wright brothers to develop and produce the service's first airplane. Among numerous other stipulations of this historic agreement was a requirement that the Wrights deliver a flying machine small enough to be hauled in a big Army wagon. Today, the Air Force's airlifters are enormous, and it is they who haul the Army's biggest vehicles, rather than the other way around. Moreover, experts predict, tomorrow's transports will be able to haul massive loads to any point on Earth within an hour, defend themselves en route, and land on parking lots. It is this striking evolution of military airlift over the past century that formed the basis of a wide-ranging Air Mobility Symposium held late last year at Andrews AFB, Md., where it was sponsored by the Air Force Historical Foundation, the Office of the Air Force Historian, and Air Mobility Command.