Air Freighters. Part-Five.

Freighters of the 21st Century.

Many older aircraft as we have seen in this series remain in service for these roles of freight and postal use, but now with the rise in Internet shopping their is an even greater demand on 'Mail order and many traditional carriers such as FedEx and UPS are turning to the Boeing 777, because of its cubic space.

The Russian Antonov An-124 Ruslan, Ilyushin Il-176, Boeing C-17 Globemaster III and Boeing 747-8, are able to lift those really cumbesome loads.

Meanwhile the market for large business and executive jets, with a combi capability has provided most manufactures to develope varians such as the sucessful Boeing 737 BBJ, 777, Embraer is now adopting their E-190's and Airbus is offering a version of their A319 for this role.

Aircraft both civil and military large, medium and small will always be found a useful role in cargo, post, and private use.

Sleds...

From Santa to the Polar regions.

The sled business remains big business, because they are in their modern motorised form an essential for travelling across and working in all snowy regions. In my research since last time during this part of the year I have not been able to find out much more.

There does not seem to be any books on the subject, perhaps someone will be able to enlighten me to this. There must be many countries involved in the design and production of these machines, such as Scandinavia, Japan, the U.S. and Canada.

The Christmas sled has more of an origin in Russia, than Lapp land or Switzerland. This was used as transport from ancient times in winter and polar conditions. Rivers that are not frozen remain a problem, apart from that military vehicles today seem to be snow tractors of various types over sleds or skies. Many aircraft also are fitted with sleds and skis to cope with winter conditions of ice.