DTN News: President Barack Obama OKs Bill For 8 More Boeing's C-17 Transport Planes

DTN News: President Barack Obama OKs Bill For 8 More Boeing's C-17 Transport Planes

*Sources: DTN News / Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - June 27, 2009: President Barack Obama signed an emergency war-funding bill late Wednesday that contains nearly $2.2 billion for eight more of Boeing's C-17 transport planes.

The C-17 is the newest airlift aircraft to enter the Air Force's inventory. The C-17 is capable of rapid strategic delivery of troops and all types of cargo to main operating bases or directly to forward bases in the deployment area. The aircraft is also able to perform theater airlift missions when required. The C-17's system specifications impose a demanding set of reliability and maintainability requirements. These requirements include an aircraft mission completion success probability of 93 percent, only 18.6 aircraft maintenance manhours per flying hour, and full and partial mission capable rates of 74.7 and 82.5 percent respectively for a mature fleet with 100,000 flying hours.

While the additional C-17 Globemaster III planes and some international orders will allow Boeing to keep its production line going through the summer of 2011, the aerospace company and its supporters are pushing for as many as 15 additional C-17s in next year's defense budget.

The C-17 supports 5,000 jobs at Boeing's final assembly plant in Long Beach, Calif., and an additional 900 in St. Louis, where the plane's cargo door, cargo ramp, landing-gear pods, nose and engine pylons are built. Boeing previously said its line would be shut down in January 2011 if it received no more U.S. orders.

"Boeing is grateful for the bipartisan congressional support the C-17 program continues to receive, along with the recognition that funding for additional C-17s is crucial at a time when America's need for airlift is growing," the company said in a statement. Boeing produces about 15 of the planes a year, and the C-17 line has been extended through similar supplemental defense spending measures since 2006.But this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed capping production of C-17s at the 205 that are in the fleet and are in the pipeline.

Boeing spokesman Jerry Drelling said the U.S. Air Force orders help keep the price affordable for sale to international customers. Next month, Boeing will deliver the first of three C-17s this year to the NATO-led Strategic Airlift Capability consortium, he said. Qatar has ordered two of the aircraft, and the United Arab Emirates has announced its intent to buy some of the aircraft. Negotiations are under way, Drelling said.

U.S. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., called the eight aircraft in the emergency funding bill a "win" for national security and St. Louis area defense workers.

"Looking forward, to preserve our nation's only large airlift line in production, we will need a combination of foreign and Department of Defense sales," Bond said. "Our military and national security will be better served with a force mix of more C-17s and fewer of the obsolete and unreliable C-5As." U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the C-17 is "important to jobs in St. Louis and important to our national security," but she added that the program to fund more of the cargo jets faces significant headwinds in the future.

In signing the bill, Obama said the legislation "will make available the funding necessary to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, defeat terrorist networks in Afghanistan and further prepare our nation in the event of a continued outbreak of the H1N1 pandemic flu."