The Air Force has upped the number of C-17 airlifters that it has on order with Boeing to 205 with the award of a $2.95 billion contract for 15 more on Feb. 6. (DOD announcement) Boeing’s C-17 spokesman Jerry Drelling told the Daily Report yesterday that the new order will keep C-17s coming off the company’s production line in Long Beach, Calif., until at least August 2010. To date, Boeing has delivered 183 C-17s to the Air Force and a total of 14 to Australia, Britain, and Canada, Drelling said. While senior Air Force officials have stated that they do not intend to seek additional C-17s beyond 205, support for the aircraft remains strong in Congress. And, the Obama Administration’s defense agenda characterizes the aircraft as one of USAF’s “essential systems” that provide the backbone of global power projection and hints, perhaps, at a desire for more. Boeing is also building C-17s for NATO and Qatar and continues to aggressively market the airlifter overseas and is seeing international interest, Drelling said.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.