An index of all posts
Canada's Boeing C-17s have finally been used for a mission for which our politicians had claimed from day one it had been purchased: humanitarian aid.
C-17s have been involved since January 14 in flying rescue teams and humanitarian aid to Haiti. The first C-17 in also carried one yellow SAR Griffon helicopter.
US Air Force C-17s have also been doing regular flights into Haiti. It seems there is even a Qatari Air Force C-17 enroute to Haiti. The Qataris didn't waste time putting their C-17 to good use, having taken delivery of that aircraft just a few months ago.
Youtube link of CF CC-130 landing on Jacmel's 1000 meter runway. The C-17s land in Port-au-Prince and in Kingston, Jamaica.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBIi-0BYUI4
Friday, January 15, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Haiti Disaster relief: Will the DART be deployed this time?
An index of all posts
A Major disaster struck Haiti yesterday. Most major buildings in Port-au-Prince collapsed. People are trapped under concrete. Electricity and phones are down. Some hospitals are destroyed, others are overwhelmed and running out of medical supplies. The UN Peacekeeper's Headquarters collapsed and the UN Peacekeepers themselves have lost many of their own.
The need is clear. It's urgent.
Will Canada deploy some aid to Haiti ?
A Major disaster struck Haiti yesterday. Most major buildings in Port-au-Prince collapsed. People are trapped under concrete. Electricity and phones are down. Some hospitals are destroyed, others are overwhelmed and running out of medical supplies. The UN Peacekeeper's Headquarters collapsed and the UN Peacekeepers themselves have lost many of their own.
The need is clear. It's urgent.
Will Canada deploy some aid to Haiti ?
Monday, January 11, 2010
New C-17 orders
An index of all posts
On January 6th 2010, the United Arab Emirates announced an order for 6 Boeing C-17s.
On January 6th 2010, the United Arab Emirates announced an order for 6 Boeing C-17s.
It is the the second Middle East nation, after Qatar, to order the airlifter.
"The C-17 will give the UAE the ability to perform a variety of humanitarian and strategic lift operations around the world in support of both national and international missions," said Major General Staff Pilot Faris Mohamed Al Mazrouei. "These missions require us to be ready for any contingency at any time and any place, and the C-17 meets our requirements."
The UAE will take delivery of four C-17s in 2011 and two in 2012.
Boeing will provide support for the UAE C-17s through the C-17 Globemaster III Sustainment Partnership, an agreement under which Boeing is responsible for all C-17 sustainment activities, including material management and depot maintenance support.
On January 8, 2010, Boeing announced that"the U.S. government has received a Letter of Request from India's Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Indian Air Force regarding the potential acquisition of 10 C-17 Globemaster III advanced airlifters".
There had been rumours to that nature since last summer. The C-17 conducted demonstration flights in February at Aero India 2009 in Bangalore, where members of the MOD and Indian Air Force had the opportunity to see the aircraft's capabilities in action. The Indian Air Force wants to replace and augment its fleet of Russian-made AN-32 and IL-76 airlifters.
Boeing informs that there are currently 212 C-17s in service worldwide, including 19 with non-US customers.
The U.S. Air Force, including active Guard and Reserve units, has 193.
The United Kingdom (which recently announced a contract for a seventh airlifter) operates six.
Qatari Air Force has 2.
The Canadian Forces have 4.
The Royal Australian Air Force have 4.
The 12-member Strategic Airlift Capability initiative of NATO and Partnership for Peace nations have 3.
Friday, October 30, 2009
C-17 use in the United States Air Force
An index of all posts
The US Air Force uses a term called "Allowable Cabin Load" (ACL) for its transport aircraft. It is a planning figure used to determine the optimum average load its transport aircraft would carry during deployments.
Although the C-17 can carry a Maximum Payload of about 77 to 74 tonnes (according to the model), carrying such a load either reduces the range to non-trans-Atlantic distances, or requires in-flight refuelling, which requires a second aircraft to be sent to refuel it. With about 50 metric tonnes, the C-17 has a range of about 3,200NM, allowing a non-stop Charleston to Ireland flight, for example. To make it non-stop to Germany, the payload needs to be reduced to less than 40 tonnes. It may be possible with 40 tonnes from an Air Base farther north, such as Dover.
So to allow the aircraft to fly across the Atlantic non-stop and un-refuelled, the C-17's ACL is 45 short tons, so 40,8 metric tonnes (That's the plan anyway) .
I just found a paper that provides a few numbers, based on actual use of C-17 missions during Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF) , which is the Afghanistan Operation, and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
The average C-17 load during both of these missions averaged just around 18 tonnes (metric) on deployments and around 13 tonnes on redeployments. That's it. Barely C-130 Hercules-sized loads.
Of course, when a C-17 is used to carry personnel, with a full load of 102 troops (without the pallets), at 200 Kg each, it just has a payload of 20 tonnes, half of the C-17s' ACL. It's better to put them on a commercial flight. A CRAF B-747 can carry 350 and is much cheaper for flying troops than a C-17.
The US Air Force, in its planning documents, plans on an average daily use of 14.5 hours for its C-17 in times of crisis (The aircraft, I have no doubt, would be quite capable of maintaining such a tempo if it was operated by an effecient organisation).
Yet, at the peak of these two Operations, C-17 use never went above 5.84 hours per day.
Two of the reasons for the lack of hours (there are many) is lack of pilots and mis-management of the pilots they do have. You'd think the pilots were overworked?
US Air Force pilots are allowed to fly a Maximum of 120 hours in a 30 day period, and can get waivers to fly up to 150 hours in times of crisis.
Yet the average US C-17 pilot flies 43.2 hours a month, and in peak periods, the highest monthly average reached was 49.3 hours per pilot.
An average US airline pilot flies 78 hours a month.
Does anyone reading this Blog believe that the Canadian Air Force is more effecient with their Boeing C-17s than the US Air Force is with theirs?
We'll never know, since it's highly unlikely that the CF will ever publish such statisitics with the secrecy mentality that has prevailed at DND ever since the "New" government took power.
The US Air Force uses a term called "Allowable Cabin Load" (ACL) for its transport aircraft. It is a planning figure used to determine the optimum average load its transport aircraft would carry during deployments.
Although the C-17 can carry a Maximum Payload of about 77 to 74 tonnes (according to the model), carrying such a load either reduces the range to non-trans-Atlantic distances, or requires in-flight refuelling, which requires a second aircraft to be sent to refuel it. With about 50 metric tonnes, the C-17 has a range of about 3,200NM, allowing a non-stop Charleston to Ireland flight, for example. To make it non-stop to Germany, the payload needs to be reduced to less than 40 tonnes. It may be possible with 40 tonnes from an Air Base farther north, such as Dover.
So to allow the aircraft to fly across the Atlantic non-stop and un-refuelled, the C-17's ACL is 45 short tons, so 40,8 metric tonnes (That's the plan anyway) .
I just found a paper that provides a few numbers, based on actual use of C-17 missions during Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF) , which is the Afghanistan Operation, and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
The average C-17 load during both of these missions averaged just around 18 tonnes (metric) on deployments and around 13 tonnes on redeployments. That's it. Barely C-130 Hercules-sized loads.
Of course, when a C-17 is used to carry personnel, with a full load of 102 troops (without the pallets), at 200 Kg each, it just has a payload of 20 tonnes, half of the C-17s' ACL. It's better to put them on a commercial flight. A CRAF B-747 can carry 350 and is much cheaper for flying troops than a C-17.
The US Air Force, in its planning documents, plans on an average daily use of 14.5 hours for its C-17 in times of crisis (The aircraft, I have no doubt, would be quite capable of maintaining such a tempo if it was operated by an effecient organisation).
Yet, at the peak of these two Operations, C-17 use never went above 5.84 hours per day.
Two of the reasons for the lack of hours (there are many) is lack of pilots and mis-management of the pilots they do have. You'd think the pilots were overworked?
US Air Force pilots are allowed to fly a Maximum of 120 hours in a 30 day period, and can get waivers to fly up to 150 hours in times of crisis.
Yet the average US C-17 pilot flies 43.2 hours a month, and in peak periods, the highest monthly average reached was 49.3 hours per pilot.
An average US airline pilot flies 78 hours a month.
Does anyone reading this Blog believe that the Canadian Air Force is more effecient with their Boeing C-17s than the US Air Force is with theirs?
We'll never know, since it's highly unlikely that the CF will ever publish such statisitics with the secrecy mentality that has prevailed at DND ever since the "New" government took power.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The C-17 in the news
An index of all posts
Four recent articles, all from October 2009, about the fight between different factions within the US government to either cut or continue funding of the Boeing C-17. While the US is the most powerful nation on Earth, it oftens behaves like a third rate Banana Republic. This is a typical case of such behavior.
The Pentagon does not want more Boeing C-17s. President Obama does not want more Boeing C-17s.
But US Congressmen from 44 of the 50 US States want the Boeing C-17 production lines to stay open to protect the jobs they provide to their constituents. So against the wishes of the Pentagon, against the wishes of the US Air Force and against the wishes of the US President, Congress regularly votes more money for more C-17s which are imposed on the US Air Force. After voting for 120, they increased it to 180, then to 190, then to 205, then to 213, and now probably another 12 to 225.
Sounds unreal doesn't it ? Well read on.......
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This is a Los Angeles Times article by Michael Hiltzik, published on Oct 8, 2009
Billions are spent to defend 5,000 jobs at Boeing C-17 plant .
Could $2.5 billion be better spent on creating long-term training programs and developing new industries rather than keeping the Boeing plant open indefinitely merely to save jobs in Long Beach?
If you're interested in contemplating the harvest of this country's decades of failed economic policies, failed military policies and just plain failed politics -- and who isn't? -- I know just where to send you.
It's a Boeing aircraft factory on the outskirts of Long Beach Airport, where a brigade of 5,000 veteran workers can turn out 16 state-of-the-art C-17 military cargo planes every year.
This is the last factory in America capable of building large military aircraft, and it's headed for extinction.
In approving a $626-billion military budget for fiscal 2010 this week, the Senate threw in $2.5 billion for 10 more C-17s to be built at the plant. But the appropriation resembles a last desperate round of chemo prescribed for a patient whom the doctors aren't sure can be saved -- or should be. (The corresponding House bill calls for three planes, so the versions will have to be reconciled.)
The Air Force didn't actually request the planes approved by Congress; the service isn't sure that it needs any more C-17s beyond the 213 it already owns or has on order. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wants to kill the program. So does Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who launched an unsuccessful last-ditch attack on the appropriation.
President Obama has spoken in favor of the program, yet he hasn't told Gates to stand down, either.
Boeing says its current order book of 28 planes will keep the Long Beach assembly line running until July 2011. The House's three planes might extend that by a couple of months, the Senate's 10 planes by perhaps a year. Then it's over. The company says reopening the line once it's been mothballed would cost billions -- among other factors, the workforce would disperse, suppliers move on to other contracts, and tools and equipment get dismantled. So it argues that the government should keep the orders flowing against the chance that it will decide it wants a lot more C-17s after all -- something many defense analysts say is likely -- and to give the company more time to scare up foreign sales.
"We're at a no-kidding decision point," Tommy Dunehew, Boeing's vice president at the plant, told me this week.
Yet although the need to make a decision about the program's future is pressing, the decision-making process is muddled beyond measure.
The Government Accountability Office complained last November that not only had the Pentagon not decided on its optimum mix of C-17s and older C-5 cargo planes (which have more capacity and longer range but lower reliability), it hadn't even figured out how to decide. It wasn't even sure how to balance the cost perton of cargo hauled by one plane versus the other, the GAO said.
Nor has the country confronted an important economic question: Does it make sense to operate the Boeing plant indefinitely merely to preserve a few thousand jobs in Long Beach and at suppliers around the country? Or -- if jobs are the real goal here -- might it be better to spend the same money on creating long-term training programs and developing new industries?
"The same amount of money would create more jobs if it were spent on education, health or clean energy," says Robert Pollin, a University of Massachusetts economist who analyzed the effect of military spending in a paper for the Institute for Policy Studies. "You'd create more jobs not just next year, but in the next 10 years.
"That's especially true given that the C-17 workers are, shall we say, "mature." Their average age is about 56, so even under the best conditions they're closing in on retirement. It's not a rap on these crackerjack manufacturing hands to say they're not the wave of our industrial future.
But diverting government money from its incumbent recipients is never a political slam dunk. A $626-billion annual investment "has a lot of constituencies behind it," Pollin says.
Indeed, congressional debates over military procurement, while customarily couched in the vocabulary of national security, invariably reek of the pork barrel.
Boeing has been smart enough to source the C-17's parts from 650 suppliers in 44 states. So it's unsurprising that the Senate shot down McCain's effort to pare down the program this week by a 2-1 margin. Congressional love for the C-17 cuts across party lines and fiscal ideologies. Among its most stalwart defenders are California's Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. (The latter, burnishing her liberal cred, cites the plane’s suitability for “humanitarian” missions.)
Another fan is GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, whose Huntington Beach district is just down the road from the C-17 factory. Rohrabacher proclaimed his refusal to be "stampeded into spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in a precipitous manner" when the subject was the banking bailout, and voted against the stimulus package this year.
But on the C-17, Rohrabacher swears that even if it were not built in California, "I'd still be in favor of it." Same with Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), whose state is a big supplier to the C-17. He voted against the stimulus bill as a "budget buster" but voted for the C-17, which, as he told voters, will safeguard "1,200 jobs in Missouri.
"Whether an even greater number of jobs might be safeguarded or created by redeploying the money elsewhere rarely gets discussed in Congress, a body permanently afflicted with tunnel vision: McCain's argument against the C-17, for example, is that the $2.5 billion should be spent elsewhere in the military budget, not that it might more effectively be spent training schoolteachers or developing wind turbine technology.
There's no denying that the C-17 is a marvelous aircraft. Its builders are proud of its enviable operational record, maneuverability in tactical situations on the ground and efficiency in the air -- the C-17 can be flown for $11,300 per flying hour, compared with $23,100 for the C-5, the GAO says.
When I walked through the factory this week, Craig Johnson of Boeing's flight operations staff showed me how he could single-handedly reconfigure its cavernous interior from a cargo hold into a troop transport with seating for more than 100 troops, with or without parachutes, in a matter of minutes. The same job on a C-5, he said, would take several men several hours.
Yet the C-17's excellence is one of those facts that is indisputably true but irrelevant to the issue at hand, like the assertion that Roman Polanski makes great movies.
The program is on life support because the government's approach to defense manufacturing has been to ramp up and down to match the fiscal and military conditions of the moment, not to plan for the long term.
The government provoked the downsizing of the aerospace industry beginning in the late 1980s without thinking too hard about what might happen if we had to fight, oh, two wars at once on unconventional ground or supply military materiel from a single aging plant in California. Nurturing new industries and improving the academic achievement of U.S. school kids? Not on anyone's radar screen.
It's not clear what the right decision on the C-17 program would be just now. But we consistently get these things wrong -- either we're caught without an adequate military establishment, as in the run-up to World War II, or we place our bets on hugely expensive systems that get rendered irrelevant or superannuated before they can achieve liftoff. And the real key to national security, our civilian educational and technological infrastructure, gets consistently shortchanged.
Is this any way to stay on top in the modern world?
Michael Hiltzik's column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Reach him at michael.hiltzik@latimes.com, read him at www.latimes.com/hiltzik, and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.
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On Oct 20, 2009, I found this article:
Congress guilty of wasteful spending on C-17 cargo plane
President Barack Obama hasn't used his veto pen yet to reject bad legislation from Congress, but he should if a defense spending bill reaches his desk with funding for C-17 cargo planes included.
Although there was a strong attempt to strip funding for 10 new cargo planes from the bill that passed the Senate two weeks ago, the $2.5 billion appropriation remained.
We applaud the efforts of Sen. John McCain, who spearheaded the effort and Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl for their support.
The $2.5 billion is a very small part of spending $636 billion on military appropriations, including the war in Afghanistan and health care for people in the military.
But the military didn't want the 10 C-17 planes — and repeatedly told this to Congress. They are simply not needed to carry troops and supplies around the world. There are enough cargo planes in the nation's inventory to do the job, according to military experts.
So, why was there such a fight to keep spending taxpayers' money on an unneeded and unwanted plane?
Backers of the spending say that there are thousands of jobs, mainly in California, dependent on building more C-17 planes. And lobbying to keep the money in the appropriations bill was heavy. Boeing, according to a report from the Center for Responsive Politics, spent $4.9 million on lobbying for the bill in just the first six months of the year.
Apparently lost on those who wanted to spend money on an unneeded plane was Sen. McCain's strong point to kill the funding when he said continuing the C-17 "will invariably result in a reduction in critical war-fighting capabilities somewhere else in the defense program."
A companion bill in the House contains money for three of the planes, so the two measures must be reconciled in a conference committee. We urge those opposed to spending money on unneeded planes keep up the pressure to rid the compromise bill of the $2.5 billion.
Earlier this year, a threatened Obama veto of funding for the F-22 Raptor jet helped defeat spending this unneeded plane. Obama should be prepared to do the same for the C-17 cargo plane.
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Then on Oct 22, 2009, we can read this Daily Herald article titled :
Audit clears Boeing in C-17 lobbying probe
Boeing Co. and the Air Force did not illegally collude to lobby the U.S. Congress in 2007 to approve buying additional C-17 cargo aircraft from the company, according to a Defense Department audit.
"We did not identify any instances where senior Air Force officials improperly approached or communicated to members of Congress regarding C-17 issues," the Pentagon inspector general said in an unreleased 35-page audit.
The Pentagon in 2007 said it did not want more C-17s than the 190 on contract. It got them anyway: Congress added 10 that year to a wartime spending bill, then added 15 to similar legislation for fiscal 2008 and eight for fiscal 2009.
While the inspector general concluded there was nothing illegal or improper in the Air Force's communications with Capitol Hill in 2007, the audit is additional evidence of how hard it is to terminate a popular weapons program.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought once again this year to stop funding for both the C-17 transport and a backup engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Both programs are still alive as Congress begins final deliberations on the fiscal 2010 defense budget.
The audit did find that the Air Force in 2007 had communications with Congress that were "inconsistent" with Pentagon budget plans, and it recommended that service Secretary Michael Donley review how the service communicates with Congress about weapons programs.
Donley's spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffry Glenn, said the service is reviewing the report.
Wish Lists
The Pentagon hasn't wanted to buy more C-17s since fiscal 2006, yet Congress continues to fund the program.
The Air Force, for example, during the fiscal 2008 budget process included two C-17s on a "wish list" of programs that the Pentagon's budget hadn't funded but the service wanted. The Congress has requested such lists since the mid-1990s. The Air Force asked for 15 more C-17s on its fiscal 2009 wish list.
Gates this year cracked down on the practice, requiring the service lists be reviewed by his office before submission. No C- 17s were on the Air Force list for fiscal 2010. Still, both the House and Senate added money for them in their separate versions of the defense budget.
McCain Sought Audit
The audit of the C-17 funding in 2007 was requested by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. He asked the Pentagon to review allegations that the Air Force that year improperly encouraged Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing to send the service and the Pentagon an unsolicited proposal for 30 additional transports and then lobby Congress to approve the purchase.
Boeing submitted the proposal but neither the Pentagon nor the service requested the planes, according to company spokesman Jerry Drelling. Still, Congress approved money that year to buy 10 more C-17s.
The probe took two years. The findings were sent to McCain six days before the Senate on Sept. 30 voted 64-34 to keep $2.5 billion for 10 more C-17s in the fiscal 2010 defense budget over objections from the White House, the Pentagon and McCain.
House and Senate leaders negotiating a compromise budget are likely to approve some and possibly all of the extra planes.
McCain likely would have used the audit to press his case against them had the report concluded Boeing and Air Force illegally colluded in 2007.
"There were enough allegations that we thought it deserved an investigation -- that the Air Force had weighed in on the issue in a way that was counter to the DoD policy," McCain said in an interview. "Apparently, there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that," he said. "I accept the findings."
Suspicions of Lobbying
McCain in a Sept. 11, 2007, letter to then-Inspector General Claude Kicklighter sought a review of what he termed the Air Force's "creative and aggressive advocacy of plans to procure additional C-17s not included in the fiscal 2008 budget."
"The Air Force appears to be facilitating a possibly huge earmark -- as many as 30 C-17s at a possible cost of at least $250 million each," he wrote. "If true, this would be an undesirable use of Defense resources."
Deputy Inspector General Donald Horstman said the audit did not find Air Force officials took "improper" actions "with respect to the issues described by Sen. McCain."
The IG uncovered "numerous" instances where senior Air Force officials communicated with lawmakers and staff about the C-17 program and a separate service plan that called for replacing 30 older C-5 transports with C-17s, he said.
Still, "those communications did not violate law or regulation and were not otherwise improper," Horstman wrote. Nor did Air Force officials "make commitments to Boeing for the acquisition of aircraft."
Boeing spokesman Drelling said the company "has not seen the report and is unable to comment on it at this time."
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And finally, on Oct 28, 2009, the Press-Telegram has this article, signed Kristopher Hanson
Defense bill includes funds for up to 10 Boeing C-17s
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama signed a $680 billion defense budget Wednesday that includes funding for up to 10 new Boeing C-17s, though Congress will decide in December just how many jets are ultimately ordered.
The bill signed by Obama at the White House - who previously objected to continued C-17 production - comes after months of uncertainty on the massive cargo plane's future, which had been scheduled to end production in mid-2011.
The new defense budget includes the $2.5 billion needed to build 10 more C-17s, though it doesn't specify exactly how the money will be spent.
That will be decided during negotiations between Senate and House members in December, when billions included in the budget are effectively divvied up for dozens of military projects, including C-17 production.
The House earlier this year had approved about $650 million for just three C-17s, but signaled it would likely support the 10 planes approved by the Senate when it agreed to include the $2.5 billion in the bill sent to Obama.
Congresswoman Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach, who sat on the House-Senate committee which finalized the bill signed by Obama, said support remains strong to purchase 10 planes, which would keep the plant and its 5,000 workers going through 2012.
"With the President signing the Defense Authorization Act into law today, the Long Beach workforce and residents are one step closer to extending the C-17 line into 2012 and preserving 5,000 local jobs," Richardson said following the signing ceremony at the Rose Garden. ""The House and Senate have both passed their versions of the appropriations bill, and a joint conference will finalize funding; however, $2.5 billion was included in the Authorization Act and is sufficient to place an order of 10 C-17s."
Richardson said Congressman Jack Murtha, D-Penn., who chairs the Defense Appropriations Committee in the House, has signaled support for the Senate's overwhelming desire to fund 10 C-17s, which the upper chamber approved in early October on a 93-7 vote.
"I have and will continue to reach out to Chairman Murtha to make sure the C-17s are adequately funded, though all of his responses have been positive," Richardson said. "Once the conference committee meets, I am confident that a resolution will be worked out providing appropriations for the necessary C-17s."
Meanwhile, in Long Beach, Boeing officials remain cautious despite Wednesday's news.
"It's not over yet," said Boeing Spokesman Jerry Drelling. "We continue to remain optimistic that when (Congress) meets to discuss defense appropriations in December, the support will remain for 10, or close to 10, C-17s. We're grateful for the support Congress continues to give for this important aircraft."
Throughout the summer and early fall, the White House had asked Congress to end funding for the plane, saying the 213 ordered are enough for the nation's military and humanitarian needs. Boeing delivered the 190th C-17 to the Air Force on Wednesday, which it plans to base at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina.
Obama alluded to the C-17 and other "pet projects" championed by senators during the signing ceremony and praised lawmakers for stripping some $35-billion in funding for the F-22 fighter jet and a new White House helicopter fleet.
"Wasting these dollars makes us less secure," Obama said Wednesday. "And that's why we have passed a defense bill that eliminates some of the waste and inefficiency in our defense process. Today we have proved that change is possible. It may not come quickly or all at once, but if you push hard enough, it does come."
Earlier this summer, as Congress was negotiating the defense bill, he indicated his desire that they not include more funding for the plane, which made its introduction in 1993.
"The administration strongly objects to funding for unrequested C-17 airlift aircraft," the White House stated at the time. "Analyses by the DOD have shown that the C-17s in the force and on order, together with the existing fleet of (Lockheed) C-5 aircraft, are sufficient to meet the Department's future airlift needs, even under the most stressing situations."
Still, despite his position, the $2.5 billion included in the budget wasn't enough to prompt a veto.
But Obama's objections, backed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, indicate the Boeing airlifter may have a more difficult time securing domestic orders next year - a fact that has prompted the company to aggressively market the aircraft abroad.
Already, more than a dozen C-17s have been collectively sold to the United Kingdom, Qatar, Canada and Australia in recent years, as well as a NATO-led consortium based in Hungary.
The United Arab Emirates has expressed interest in purchasing four of the heavy-lift aircraft and is expected to announce a deal soon, while the Indian Air Force is exploring purchasing as many as 10 C-17s in coming years, though negotiations are in very early stages and any aircraft are not likely to be built before 2013.
For those reasons, the domestic order this year could serve as a bridge until more foreign orders are drummed up. The federal government estimates closing the plant and re-opening could cost in excess of $1 billion.
Boeing says it needs about 12 orders annually to justify high labor and production costs and reassure its suppliers of the need to continue investing in C-17 parts.
In recent years, C-17s - along with heavy-lift helicopters - have been used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan to ferry supplies and troops between remote military outposts, largely replacing the vehicle convoys regularly used in the early days of both wars that were often destroyed by roadside attacks and bombs.
The effort, supporters say, has helped cut troop casualties while speeding up delivery of supplies. The C-17 is the globe's only large cargo plane able to land on unpaved, short landing strips in remote regions inaccessible to other large aircraft such as Lockheed's C-5.
The jet is capable of carrying large armored vehicles and tanks, tons of supplies or dozens of troops and their equipment, depending on need.
For example, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell lauded the plane's usefulness Oct. 1 as it began delivering the first of more than 6,600 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, vehicles to troops in Afghanistan. The "life-saving" vehicles will replace many of the armored Humvees currently in use, which have been criticized as inadequate navigating much of Afghanistan's rugged terrain, Morrell said.
Several hundred will be delivered into the region per month - primarily aboard C-17s - as the military gears up for what's expected to be an intense fight against insurgents based in mountain hideouts.
The C-17 has also frequently been called into service to deliver medical supplies, food, water and other necessities in the wake of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and more recently, the earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga in late September.
Shortly after that disaster, the Defense Department reported dispatching a fleet of C-17s based in Washington state and loaded with hundreds of laptop computers, pallets of medicine, tents, radios and satellite terminals, as well as nurses and doctors to help in the relief effort, to the tiny string of South Pacific islands.
kristopher.hanson@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1466
Four recent articles, all from October 2009, about the fight between different factions within the US government to either cut or continue funding of the Boeing C-17. While the US is the most powerful nation on Earth, it oftens behaves like a third rate Banana Republic. This is a typical case of such behavior.
The Pentagon does not want more Boeing C-17s. President Obama does not want more Boeing C-17s.
But US Congressmen from 44 of the 50 US States want the Boeing C-17 production lines to stay open to protect the jobs they provide to their constituents. So against the wishes of the Pentagon, against the wishes of the US Air Force and against the wishes of the US President, Congress regularly votes more money for more C-17s which are imposed on the US Air Force. After voting for 120, they increased it to 180, then to 190, then to 205, then to 213, and now probably another 12 to 225.
Sounds unreal doesn't it ? Well read on.......
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a Los Angeles Times article by Michael Hiltzik, published on Oct 8, 2009
Billions are spent to defend 5,000 jobs at Boeing C-17 plant .
Could $2.5 billion be better spent on creating long-term training programs and developing new industries rather than keeping the Boeing plant open indefinitely merely to save jobs in Long Beach?
If you're interested in contemplating the harvest of this country's decades of failed economic policies, failed military policies and just plain failed politics -- and who isn't? -- I know just where to send you.
It's a Boeing aircraft factory on the outskirts of Long Beach Airport, where a brigade of 5,000 veteran workers can turn out 16 state-of-the-art C-17 military cargo planes every year.
This is the last factory in America capable of building large military aircraft, and it's headed for extinction.
In approving a $626-billion military budget for fiscal 2010 this week, the Senate threw in $2.5 billion for 10 more C-17s to be built at the plant. But the appropriation resembles a last desperate round of chemo prescribed for a patient whom the doctors aren't sure can be saved -- or should be. (The corresponding House bill calls for three planes, so the versions will have to be reconciled.)
The Air Force didn't actually request the planes approved by Congress; the service isn't sure that it needs any more C-17s beyond the 213 it already owns or has on order. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wants to kill the program. So does Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who launched an unsuccessful last-ditch attack on the appropriation.
President Obama has spoken in favor of the program, yet he hasn't told Gates to stand down, either.
Boeing says its current order book of 28 planes will keep the Long Beach assembly line running until July 2011. The House's three planes might extend that by a couple of months, the Senate's 10 planes by perhaps a year. Then it's over. The company says reopening the line once it's been mothballed would cost billions -- among other factors, the workforce would disperse, suppliers move on to other contracts, and tools and equipment get dismantled. So it argues that the government should keep the orders flowing against the chance that it will decide it wants a lot more C-17s after all -- something many defense analysts say is likely -- and to give the company more time to scare up foreign sales.
"We're at a no-kidding decision point," Tommy Dunehew, Boeing's vice president at the plant, told me this week.
Yet although the need to make a decision about the program's future is pressing, the decision-making process is muddled beyond measure.
The Government Accountability Office complained last November that not only had the Pentagon not decided on its optimum mix of C-17s and older C-5 cargo planes (which have more capacity and longer range but lower reliability), it hadn't even figured out how to decide. It wasn't even sure how to balance the cost perton of cargo hauled by one plane versus the other, the GAO said.
Nor has the country confronted an important economic question: Does it make sense to operate the Boeing plant indefinitely merely to preserve a few thousand jobs in Long Beach and at suppliers around the country? Or -- if jobs are the real goal here -- might it be better to spend the same money on creating long-term training programs and developing new industries?
"The same amount of money would create more jobs if it were spent on education, health or clean energy," says Robert Pollin, a University of Massachusetts economist who analyzed the effect of military spending in a paper for the Institute for Policy Studies. "You'd create more jobs not just next year, but in the next 10 years.
"That's especially true given that the C-17 workers are, shall we say, "mature." Their average age is about 56, so even under the best conditions they're closing in on retirement. It's not a rap on these crackerjack manufacturing hands to say they're not the wave of our industrial future.
But diverting government money from its incumbent recipients is never a political slam dunk. A $626-billion annual investment "has a lot of constituencies behind it," Pollin says.
Indeed, congressional debates over military procurement, while customarily couched in the vocabulary of national security, invariably reek of the pork barrel.
Boeing has been smart enough to source the C-17's parts from 650 suppliers in 44 states. So it's unsurprising that the Senate shot down McCain's effort to pare down the program this week by a 2-1 margin. Congressional love for the C-17 cuts across party lines and fiscal ideologies. Among its most stalwart defenders are California's Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. (The latter, burnishing her liberal cred, cites the plane’s suitability for “humanitarian” missions.)
Another fan is GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, whose Huntington Beach district is just down the road from the C-17 factory. Rohrabacher proclaimed his refusal to be "stampeded into spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in a precipitous manner" when the subject was the banking bailout, and voted against the stimulus package this year.
But on the C-17, Rohrabacher swears that even if it were not built in California, "I'd still be in favor of it." Same with Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), whose state is a big supplier to the C-17. He voted against the stimulus bill as a "budget buster" but voted for the C-17, which, as he told voters, will safeguard "1,200 jobs in Missouri.
"Whether an even greater number of jobs might be safeguarded or created by redeploying the money elsewhere rarely gets discussed in Congress, a body permanently afflicted with tunnel vision: McCain's argument against the C-17, for example, is that the $2.5 billion should be spent elsewhere in the military budget, not that it might more effectively be spent training schoolteachers or developing wind turbine technology.
There's no denying that the C-17 is a marvelous aircraft. Its builders are proud of its enviable operational record, maneuverability in tactical situations on the ground and efficiency in the air -- the C-17 can be flown for $11,300 per flying hour, compared with $23,100 for the C-5, the GAO says.
When I walked through the factory this week, Craig Johnson of Boeing's flight operations staff showed me how he could single-handedly reconfigure its cavernous interior from a cargo hold into a troop transport with seating for more than 100 troops, with or without parachutes, in a matter of minutes. The same job on a C-5, he said, would take several men several hours.
Yet the C-17's excellence is one of those facts that is indisputably true but irrelevant to the issue at hand, like the assertion that Roman Polanski makes great movies.
The program is on life support because the government's approach to defense manufacturing has been to ramp up and down to match the fiscal and military conditions of the moment, not to plan for the long term.
The government provoked the downsizing of the aerospace industry beginning in the late 1980s without thinking too hard about what might happen if we had to fight, oh, two wars at once on unconventional ground or supply military materiel from a single aging plant in California. Nurturing new industries and improving the academic achievement of U.S. school kids? Not on anyone's radar screen.
It's not clear what the right decision on the C-17 program would be just now. But we consistently get these things wrong -- either we're caught without an adequate military establishment, as in the run-up to World War II, or we place our bets on hugely expensive systems that get rendered irrelevant or superannuated before they can achieve liftoff. And the real key to national security, our civilian educational and technological infrastructure, gets consistently shortchanged.
Is this any way to stay on top in the modern world?
Michael Hiltzik's column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Reach him at michael.hiltzik@latimes.com, read him at www.latimes.com/hiltzik, and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.
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On Oct 20, 2009, I found this article:
Congress guilty of wasteful spending on C-17 cargo plane
President Barack Obama hasn't used his veto pen yet to reject bad legislation from Congress, but he should if a defense spending bill reaches his desk with funding for C-17 cargo planes included.
Although there was a strong attempt to strip funding for 10 new cargo planes from the bill that passed the Senate two weeks ago, the $2.5 billion appropriation remained.
We applaud the efforts of Sen. John McCain, who spearheaded the effort and Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl for their support.
The $2.5 billion is a very small part of spending $636 billion on military appropriations, including the war in Afghanistan and health care for people in the military.
But the military didn't want the 10 C-17 planes — and repeatedly told this to Congress. They are simply not needed to carry troops and supplies around the world. There are enough cargo planes in the nation's inventory to do the job, according to military experts.
So, why was there such a fight to keep spending taxpayers' money on an unneeded and unwanted plane?
Backers of the spending say that there are thousands of jobs, mainly in California, dependent on building more C-17 planes. And lobbying to keep the money in the appropriations bill was heavy. Boeing, according to a report from the Center for Responsive Politics, spent $4.9 million on lobbying for the bill in just the first six months of the year.
Apparently lost on those who wanted to spend money on an unneeded plane was Sen. McCain's strong point to kill the funding when he said continuing the C-17 "will invariably result in a reduction in critical war-fighting capabilities somewhere else in the defense program."
A companion bill in the House contains money for three of the planes, so the two measures must be reconciled in a conference committee. We urge those opposed to spending money on unneeded planes keep up the pressure to rid the compromise bill of the $2.5 billion.
Earlier this year, a threatened Obama veto of funding for the F-22 Raptor jet helped defeat spending this unneeded plane. Obama should be prepared to do the same for the C-17 cargo plane.
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Then on Oct 22, 2009, we can read this Daily Herald article titled :
Audit clears Boeing in C-17 lobbying probe
Boeing Co. and the Air Force did not illegally collude to lobby the U.S. Congress in 2007 to approve buying additional C-17 cargo aircraft from the company, according to a Defense Department audit.
"We did not identify any instances where senior Air Force officials improperly approached or communicated to members of Congress regarding C-17 issues," the Pentagon inspector general said in an unreleased 35-page audit.
The Pentagon in 2007 said it did not want more C-17s than the 190 on contract. It got them anyway: Congress added 10 that year to a wartime spending bill, then added 15 to similar legislation for fiscal 2008 and eight for fiscal 2009.
While the inspector general concluded there was nothing illegal or improper in the Air Force's communications with Capitol Hill in 2007, the audit is additional evidence of how hard it is to terminate a popular weapons program.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought once again this year to stop funding for both the C-17 transport and a backup engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Both programs are still alive as Congress begins final deliberations on the fiscal 2010 defense budget.
The audit did find that the Air Force in 2007 had communications with Congress that were "inconsistent" with Pentagon budget plans, and it recommended that service Secretary Michael Donley review how the service communicates with Congress about weapons programs.
Donley's spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffry Glenn, said the service is reviewing the report.
Wish Lists
The Pentagon hasn't wanted to buy more C-17s since fiscal 2006, yet Congress continues to fund the program.
The Air Force, for example, during the fiscal 2008 budget process included two C-17s on a "wish list" of programs that the Pentagon's budget hadn't funded but the service wanted. The Congress has requested such lists since the mid-1990s. The Air Force asked for 15 more C-17s on its fiscal 2009 wish list.
Gates this year cracked down on the practice, requiring the service lists be reviewed by his office before submission. No C- 17s were on the Air Force list for fiscal 2010. Still, both the House and Senate added money for them in their separate versions of the defense budget.
McCain Sought Audit
The audit of the C-17 funding in 2007 was requested by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. He asked the Pentagon to review allegations that the Air Force that year improperly encouraged Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing to send the service and the Pentagon an unsolicited proposal for 30 additional transports and then lobby Congress to approve the purchase.
Boeing submitted the proposal but neither the Pentagon nor the service requested the planes, according to company spokesman Jerry Drelling. Still, Congress approved money that year to buy 10 more C-17s.
The probe took two years. The findings were sent to McCain six days before the Senate on Sept. 30 voted 64-34 to keep $2.5 billion for 10 more C-17s in the fiscal 2010 defense budget over objections from the White House, the Pentagon and McCain.
House and Senate leaders negotiating a compromise budget are likely to approve some and possibly all of the extra planes.
McCain likely would have used the audit to press his case against them had the report concluded Boeing and Air Force illegally colluded in 2007.
"There were enough allegations that we thought it deserved an investigation -- that the Air Force had weighed in on the issue in a way that was counter to the DoD policy," McCain said in an interview. "Apparently, there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that," he said. "I accept the findings."
Suspicions of Lobbying
McCain in a Sept. 11, 2007, letter to then-Inspector General Claude Kicklighter sought a review of what he termed the Air Force's "creative and aggressive advocacy of plans to procure additional C-17s not included in the fiscal 2008 budget."
"The Air Force appears to be facilitating a possibly huge earmark -- as many as 30 C-17s at a possible cost of at least $250 million each," he wrote. "If true, this would be an undesirable use of Defense resources."
Deputy Inspector General Donald Horstman said the audit did not find Air Force officials took "improper" actions "with respect to the issues described by Sen. McCain."
The IG uncovered "numerous" instances where senior Air Force officials communicated with lawmakers and staff about the C-17 program and a separate service plan that called for replacing 30 older C-5 transports with C-17s, he said.
Still, "those communications did not violate law or regulation and were not otherwise improper," Horstman wrote. Nor did Air Force officials "make commitments to Boeing for the acquisition of aircraft."
Boeing spokesman Drelling said the company "has not seen the report and is unable to comment on it at this time."
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And finally, on Oct 28, 2009, the Press-Telegram has this article, signed Kristopher Hanson
Defense bill includes funds for up to 10 Boeing C-17s
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama signed a $680 billion defense budget Wednesday that includes funding for up to 10 new Boeing C-17s, though Congress will decide in December just how many jets are ultimately ordered.
The bill signed by Obama at the White House - who previously objected to continued C-17 production - comes after months of uncertainty on the massive cargo plane's future, which had been scheduled to end production in mid-2011.
The new defense budget includes the $2.5 billion needed to build 10 more C-17s, though it doesn't specify exactly how the money will be spent.
That will be decided during negotiations between Senate and House members in December, when billions included in the budget are effectively divvied up for dozens of military projects, including C-17 production.
The House earlier this year had approved about $650 million for just three C-17s, but signaled it would likely support the 10 planes approved by the Senate when it agreed to include the $2.5 billion in the bill sent to Obama.
Congresswoman Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach, who sat on the House-Senate committee which finalized the bill signed by Obama, said support remains strong to purchase 10 planes, which would keep the plant and its 5,000 workers going through 2012.
"With the President signing the Defense Authorization Act into law today, the Long Beach workforce and residents are one step closer to extending the C-17 line into 2012 and preserving 5,000 local jobs," Richardson said following the signing ceremony at the Rose Garden. ""The House and Senate have both passed their versions of the appropriations bill, and a joint conference will finalize funding; however, $2.5 billion was included in the Authorization Act and is sufficient to place an order of 10 C-17s."
Richardson said Congressman Jack Murtha, D-Penn., who chairs the Defense Appropriations Committee in the House, has signaled support for the Senate's overwhelming desire to fund 10 C-17s, which the upper chamber approved in early October on a 93-7 vote.
"I have and will continue to reach out to Chairman Murtha to make sure the C-17s are adequately funded, though all of his responses have been positive," Richardson said. "Once the conference committee meets, I am confident that a resolution will be worked out providing appropriations for the necessary C-17s."
Meanwhile, in Long Beach, Boeing officials remain cautious despite Wednesday's news.
"It's not over yet," said Boeing Spokesman Jerry Drelling. "We continue to remain optimistic that when (Congress) meets to discuss defense appropriations in December, the support will remain for 10, or close to 10, C-17s. We're grateful for the support Congress continues to give for this important aircraft."
Throughout the summer and early fall, the White House had asked Congress to end funding for the plane, saying the 213 ordered are enough for the nation's military and humanitarian needs. Boeing delivered the 190th C-17 to the Air Force on Wednesday, which it plans to base at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina.
Obama alluded to the C-17 and other "pet projects" championed by senators during the signing ceremony and praised lawmakers for stripping some $35-billion in funding for the F-22 fighter jet and a new White House helicopter fleet.
"Wasting these dollars makes us less secure," Obama said Wednesday. "And that's why we have passed a defense bill that eliminates some of the waste and inefficiency in our defense process. Today we have proved that change is possible. It may not come quickly or all at once, but if you push hard enough, it does come."
Earlier this summer, as Congress was negotiating the defense bill, he indicated his desire that they not include more funding for the plane, which made its introduction in 1993.
"The administration strongly objects to funding for unrequested C-17 airlift aircraft," the White House stated at the time. "Analyses by the DOD have shown that the C-17s in the force and on order, together with the existing fleet of (Lockheed) C-5 aircraft, are sufficient to meet the Department's future airlift needs, even under the most stressing situations."
Still, despite his position, the $2.5 billion included in the budget wasn't enough to prompt a veto.
But Obama's objections, backed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, indicate the Boeing airlifter may have a more difficult time securing domestic orders next year - a fact that has prompted the company to aggressively market the aircraft abroad.
Already, more than a dozen C-17s have been collectively sold to the United Kingdom, Qatar, Canada and Australia in recent years, as well as a NATO-led consortium based in Hungary.
The United Arab Emirates has expressed interest in purchasing four of the heavy-lift aircraft and is expected to announce a deal soon, while the Indian Air Force is exploring purchasing as many as 10 C-17s in coming years, though negotiations are in very early stages and any aircraft are not likely to be built before 2013.
For those reasons, the domestic order this year could serve as a bridge until more foreign orders are drummed up. The federal government estimates closing the plant and re-opening could cost in excess of $1 billion.
Boeing says it needs about 12 orders annually to justify high labor and production costs and reassure its suppliers of the need to continue investing in C-17 parts.
In recent years, C-17s - along with heavy-lift helicopters - have been used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan to ferry supplies and troops between remote military outposts, largely replacing the vehicle convoys regularly used in the early days of both wars that were often destroyed by roadside attacks and bombs.
The effort, supporters say, has helped cut troop casualties while speeding up delivery of supplies. The C-17 is the globe's only large cargo plane able to land on unpaved, short landing strips in remote regions inaccessible to other large aircraft such as Lockheed's C-5.
The jet is capable of carrying large armored vehicles and tanks, tons of supplies or dozens of troops and their equipment, depending on need.
For example, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell lauded the plane's usefulness Oct. 1 as it began delivering the first of more than 6,600 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, vehicles to troops in Afghanistan. The "life-saving" vehicles will replace many of the armored Humvees currently in use, which have been criticized as inadequate navigating much of Afghanistan's rugged terrain, Morrell said.
Several hundred will be delivered into the region per month - primarily aboard C-17s - as the military gears up for what's expected to be an intense fight against insurgents based in mountain hideouts.
The C-17 has also frequently been called into service to deliver medical supplies, food, water and other necessities in the wake of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and more recently, the earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga in late September.
Shortly after that disaster, the Defense Department reported dispatching a fleet of C-17s based in Washington state and loaded with hundreds of laptop computers, pallets of medicine, tents, radios and satellite terminals, as well as nurses and doctors to help in the relief effort, to the tiny string of South Pacific islands.
kristopher.hanson@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1466
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