Thread by @uk_domain_names

What would happen if the RAF stepped in to help transport vital supplies? Is the idea realistic?

Boeing C-17: Fleet of 8. Max capacity 77,500kg/aircraft.
Hercules C4: Fleet of 14. Max capacity 33,000kg/aircraft.
Airbus A400M Atlas: Fleet of 22. Max capacity 37,000kg/aircraft.

So all together, they can carry 1,896 tons of stuff if every aircraft were loaded to the gills.

How does that compare to road/sea freight?

Well, the maximum weight capacity of a 40ft shipping container is 26,000kg.

That means that the RAF's entire fleet of transport planes working together could move 73 containers' worth of products.

In 2017, Dover moved 2,891,500 freight loads. That's 7,920 container loads a day.

So the RAF's efforts would represent a little under 1% of that.

Ah, but maybe you could fly 2-3 times a day back and forth. You'd have to pack and unload the planes like a demon, but it could be done.

That's great, except that the rest of the UK's ports are carrying over 2x what Dover is, so you're back to square one.

Moral of the story: ideas that look good after a leisurely lunch at the taxpayer's expense, washed down by a few bottles of Chateau Lafite 1963, don't stand up to scrutiny in the real world. And that's before we breathe a word about the environmental impact...

But this reminds me of the Brexit ferry debacle, on which we wasted close to £100 million. It would have boosted total capacity by 3% had it been up and running at max. So that might have knocked 10 minutes or so off the queues... It's all sticky plaster on gaping wound stuff.

Added: here's a much more fully worked version of the above, with added detail.

https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1160798634092486657?s=20