This is Why Boeing Discontinued The C-17 Globemaster III Navy Cargo Plane

With its lengthy historical past within the aviation business, it is unsurprising Boeing has seen many modifications to its fleets. As aviation expertise improves, it is solely pure that older items are changed with extra superior, environment friendly fashions, particularly when they’re now not as cost-effective to keep up or match the present mission necessities. In fact, relating to navy planes, staying forward of the sport is much more essential as threats proceed evolve. Among the many many acclaimed Boeing plane lower from manufacturing unit traces is the C-17 Globemaster III.

Though the C-17 Globemaster III had its maiden flight in 1991, it took 4 extra years till the primary C-17 squadron turned operationally prepared. It is gotten a status as an extremely versatile plane that has performed an element in a variety of transport missions for troops, cargo, and medical evacuation. That is attainable, partially, because of its means to work in brief runaways and land in as little as 3,000 ft, whereas nonetheless having the ability to deal with sizable payloads, which Boeing claims might go as much as 110,000 lbs in sequential load drops. Powered by 4 F117-PW-100 turbofan engines designed by Pratt & Whitney, the C-17 Globemaster III does not simply maintain a max take off weight of over 290 tons, but it surely additionally boasts a whopping 40,440 lbs of thrust per engine.

Regardless of its maintainability, it wasn’t sufficient for Boeing to proceed the manufacturing of the C-17 Globemaster III. Much like the rationale the 747 was axed, Boeing introduced its plans to cease manufacturing the C-17 due to the dearth of demand in 2013. As of this writing, Boeing says 275 C-17s are nonetheless operational, and 80% are utilized by the U.S. Air Power.

In the course of the 2024 World Protection Present, Boeing government Torbjorn Sjogre stated, “The C-17 is a product that does come up very often. If we nonetheless had a lukewarm manufacturing line there are a variety of shoppers who’ve expressed curiosity,” in accordance with FlightGlobal. Though, Sjogre shared that it might be costly to restart manufacturing.

Then again, it appears its proposed successor had no issues taking off. In an interview with FlightGlobal, Boeing’s VP for worldwide enterprise improvement, protection, area & safety Vince Logsdon talked about that he believes the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance plane might take the C-17’s place. In February 2024, the U.S. Division of Protection awarded a $3.4 billion contract for a fleet of 17 P-8A aircrafts that are set to be delivered to Ottawa, Canada and Berlin, Germany.

Other than supplying navy cargo plane, Boeing can be recognized for its business airways. Previously few years, Boeing has been on the heart of some controversies, together with the unlucky incident when an emergency door got here off mid-fight in one in every of its 737 Max planes earlier this yr. In January 2024, passengers of an Alaska Airways flight skilled a nightmare state of affairs, whereby the door got here off its hinges and ended up in a residential space in Oregon.

Though there have been no casualties within the Alaska Airways flight catastrophe, the identical cannot be stated for earlier incidents from Boeing planes in the previous couple of years. In 2018, the ill-fated Lion Air crash in Indonesia led to the lack of 189 people, whereas an Ethiopian Airways flight that crashed throughout the first six minutes of its flight took the lives of over 150 folks a number of months later.