Yes, thank you.
I was involved and was aware of those discussions. The statement of requirements had not been finalized at the point when we had discussions about what the payload requirement was. Colonel Burt—the director of air requirements—and his staff had been thinking in terms of their old Airbus A310 aircraft, which was effectively our only strategic airlifter. They put materiel in the cargo bay of the A310 Airbus, which had a capacity, I believe, of about 19,000 pounds. It had been in their minds that they needed a capability for strategic lift that was no worse than what they already had in their A310.
In the review of those requirements, the question was asked whether or not that is truly a strategic airlifter that can take armoured vehicles trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific to operational missions. The air staff re-evaluated it prior to the SOR being completed and signed off by the vice-chief, and they felt their minimum requirement really was to be able to haul two completely up-armoured LAV IIIs trans-Atlantic to Europe, refuel, and go to a mission somewhere overseas.
This is a personal view, but I think they had been trying to do that sort of job with the Hercules for many years. They were using a Hercules as a strategic airlifter, but a Hercules would carry one vehicle, with some difficulty, trans-Atlantic. That's why it went from 19,000 pounds to 39,000 pounds, which corresponds to two armoured vehicles.