Last Boeing C-17 built in Long Beach

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-last-boeing-c-17-takes-flight-as-california-aerospace-era-ends-20151129-story.html

 

[AeroFranz]

Isn't the C-17 the last (large) aircraft production line left in California?
a far cry from the golden days :-[

 

[sferrin]

What a shame. I wonder what they'll do when the C-5s run out of life.

 

[donnage99]

Start a replacement program that is so badly managed and underbid that it inevitably faced cancellation by the glorious and immortal supreme leader 4th term President Trump, which forced the Air Force to scramble to restart C-17 production line

 

[sferrin]

Buy N Large

Start a replacement program that is so badly managed and underbid that it inevitably faced cancellation by the glorious and immortal supreme leader 4th term President Trump, which forced the Air Force to scramble to restart C-17 production line

At which point they'd discover anybody who worked on it is retired, the assembly line is gone, the tooling destroyed, and the building is now a Buy N Large Wal-Mart.

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi7LTr3SfK4

 

[aero-engineer]

This was the last C-17 to leave Long Beach (P-275). The last one off the line (P-279) actually left a few weeks ago.

aero-engineer

 

[aero-engineer]

Here is one of the photos I took of the "bow" for those in the Boeing parking lot.

aero-engineer

 

[Kiltonge]

What a shame. I wonder what they'll do when the C-5s run out of life.

Much of the routine line-hauling currently done by C-17s will probably transition to the KC-46. The C-17's average payload in the USAF is somewhere around 40 to 45 tonnes which is right around the max payload range for the 767, at which point it can still match the C-17 in range whilst burning half the fuel.

The C-17s are only used on the long trans-ocean runs because the USAF has been forced to buy so many of them.

Once the C-5s start to phase out I expect the USAF to send the ass-and-trash on the KC-46s and move the C-17s up the scale to where they should be operating, moving indivisible outsized loads.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Thanks for the clarification, aero-engineer.

 

[sferrin]

What a shame. I wonder what they'll do when the C-5s run out of life.

Much of the routine line-hauling currently done by C-17s will probably transition to the KC-46. The C-17's average payload in the USAF is somewhere around 40 to 45 tonnes which is right around the max payload range for the 767, at which point it can still match the C-17 in range whilst burning half the fuel.

The C-17s are only used on the long trans-ocean runs because the USAF has been forced to buy so many of them.

Once the C-5s start to phase out I expect the USAF to send the ass-and-trash on the KC-46s and move the C-17s up the scale to where they should be operating, moving indivisible outsized loads.

But using KC-46s for cargo aircraft will use up tanker hours shuffling cargo instead of tanking. Seems like a waste.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Not to mention that the United States is short on tankers as it is.

 

[LowObservable]

Hauling pallets between main operating bases on a STOL outsize-cargo-capable airplane with airdrop doors is also suboptimal.

 

[mz]

Hauling pallets between main operating bases on a STOL outsize-cargo-capable airplane with airdrop doors is also suboptimal.

I guess they can't just buy regular cargo services? Or even lease cargo aircraft?