WAR: Boeing's C-17s see quick action

The Orange County Register ^ | Saturday, March 29, 2003 | ANDREW GALVIN The Orange County Register

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Taking delivery: Col. Brooks Bash receives the ceremonial keys to a new Boeing C-17.

LONG BEACH

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Links to the Photos:

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[Livn4Golf]

"Bash thanked a group of about 20 Boeing employees who helped build the jet."

Maybe we could get more planes finished if Boeing put more than 20 people on the job.

[Calpernia]

http://www.centerstall.com/airborne.rm

[Mark Felton]

Never mess with a country that can fly M1A2 tanks at 30,000 feet and land them on dirt runways in the middle of nowhere.

[Mark Felton]

CARGO SYSTEMS

The design of the cargo compartment allows the C-17 to carry a wide range of vehicles, palleted cargo, paratroops, air-drop loads and aeromedical evacuees. The cargo compartment has a sufficiently large cross-section to transport large wheeled and tracked vehicles, tanks, helicopters (such as the AH-64 Apache), artillery, and weapons such as the Patriot Missile System. The C-17 is capable of carrying out an air drop of outsize firepower Ð such as the Sheridan tank or the Bradley fighting vehicle, if the Bradley is refitted to be air-drop capable. Three Bradley armoured vehicles comprise one deployment load on the C-17. The US Army M-1 main battle tank can be carried with other vehicles.

Airlift capabilities include: combat offload up to 18 pallets, 69,000lb; Container Delivery System (CDS) air drop up to 40 containers, 2,350lb each; up to 102 paratroops; and high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) jumpers. The aircraft is equipped for low-altitude parachute extraction system (LAPES) drops.

[Travis McGee]

"FLYING GALAXY LOADS TO HERCULES FIELDS!"

You gotta love it!

[Travis McGee]

Man, I would love to see a LAPES extraction out of this baby!!!!

[Missouri]

>>Maybe we could get more planes finished if Boeing put more than 20 people on the job<<


LOL !!
You must have worked for Boeing at one time like me.

[AdA$tra]

Our local news announced the deployment of mechanized units from Fort Xxxxxxx on the evening news. I was a step ahead of them as C-17's had been blowing out of here all day before that. Awsome looking and sounding aircraft. They almost seem to float effortlessly across the sky.

[Balata]

[AdA$tra]

My favorite C-17 pic here^. (400+k image size)

[PackerBoy]

You just made me smile. Thanks.

[Balata]

Here's a thread I think you would find interesting. Perhaps you haven't seen it. Airborn jumps into northern Iraq

1000 paratroopers jumped out of 15 C-17's at 500ft. at night while carring a 100lb pack in hostile environment. Pretty impressive.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I love that picture, I only get to see them one at a time as they come into Long Beach Airport.

[prophetic]

If I was some enemy and I saw that flight of 8 C-17's coming down to my country I'd really begin t be very worried.

[CGTRWK]

You'd think a big slow transport would be low tech and cheap, but not the C-17. The total program cost is looking to total close to 50 billion dollars. That is right up there in the range of the glamorous weapon systems like the B-2, Comanche, Super Hornet, etc. A quarter of a billion dollars per aircraft. These things are either technical marvels or horribly mismanaged, or maybe both.

I believe it'd have saved quite a bit of money if we'd built more of the in many ways more capable C-5Bs 15 years ago. Stopping at 50 to wait for the "supposed to be cheaper" C-17s means we now need 200 plus C-17s with no way to get around the cost.

[michaelt]

The C-5 could never land at all the airfields the C-17 can.

[RayChuang88]

The important thing about the C-17 is that its runway requirements are much smaller than that of the C-5B, due to the fact the C-17 is almost a STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) airplane due to its wing design.

[MinuteGal]

How do you play Iraqi bingo?

B-52....F-16....C-17.....

Leni