Commercial communications analogy to Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF)

This paper describes the current Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) program and examines the similarities and differences between airlift and commercial satellite communications (SATCOM). Although the requirements profiles for airlift and SATCOM are similar, the users which require surge capacity during crises are fundamentally different. This paper introduces a “Cascade Strategy” that overcomes these differences and allows a CRAF-like application for SATCOM. The Cascade Strategy temporarily moves fixed users from military to commercial SATCOM systems during crises. As shown by the Kosovo example given in the paper, this strategy requires preplanning to ensure availability of resources when needed