The C-17 defenders took their heaviest blow yet in this ongoing boxing match between those who want to continue production of the military’s four engine cargo jet, and the Obama Administration, who wants to end the program at the 223 planes already in the pipeline.
The Obama Administration and congress have been duking it out over the C-17 for as long as this administration has been in the White House. Last year at about this time, the C-17 Congressional defenders won the match as the Administration capitulated and gave up. The congress wants to keep building more planes because even though the final assembly plant is in Long Beach, Boeing employs tens of thousands of registered voters spread across many states and congressional districts, to build various parts of the big planes.
The Obama Administration’s big man in this match is Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates. Most people on both sides of this issue agree the C-17 is a fine piece of hardware, but according to Gates, we just don’t need more than the 223 already in service or on order.
Although they are currently on strike, normally there are about 5,000 people employed in Long Beach by Boeing to assemble the heavy lift Boeing C-17 Globemaster III advanced airlifter. Boeing has been trying to reel in an order from the Indian Air Force for 10 planes and it is of course working on other international customers, but if the U.S. Air Force stops buying the planes, the Boeing employees will not need a strike to get some time off work.
The crushing blow from President Obama came in a May 28 statement of administration policy. Such statements are a less formal way by which the President expresses his thoughts about pending legislation. The statement, in full, is as follows:
“For Immediate Release May 28, 2010 Statement by the President on Efforts by Secretary Gates to Reform Pentagon Spending
As the Congress continues its work on funding bills for the Department of Defense, I want to reiterate my strong support for the reforms Secretary Gates is advancing at the Pentagon. He has kept me fully apprised of his efforts to reform how our military operates and bring needed efficiencies to the Department of Defense. I stand squarely behind Secretary Gates’ position on the JSF second engine and C-17 programs. As the Statement of Administration Policy made clear, our military does not want or need these programs being pushed by the Congress, and should Congress ignore this fact, I will veto any such legislation so that it can be returned to me without those provisions.”
Even though last year the President and his Defense Secretary called for an end of C-17 production, they held back from using the veto threat on that program. They did use the veto threat on the F-22, another expensive program with strong congressional support and that program was ultimately removed from last year’s defense budget.
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
In 
Colleagues: As you are no doubt aware, the efforts to terminate Boeing C-17 production continue, and we might add, for reasons hardly provable or legitimate.
We don’t consider the most recent comments to be a “crushing blow” since the language has not changed, nor has any new data been added to support the SECDEF’s position.
It is important however, to present more of a worldview as regards C-17′s international status and the strong support from foreign nations — confirmed by India’s and the UAE’s acquisition activities — it enjoys.
Conversely, while C-17 is produced locally, it is hardly local, therefore necessitating the use of wholistic, systemic program/platform viability analytics.
The following excerpt from a recent release should update OC180 readers on the intensity of the issue, and the real, perhaps wholly uncomfortable reasons, for efforts to kill C-17.
Summary: “The drumbeat of anti-C-17 commentary in US, European, Indian, Pakistani and ME news mediums; a strike at Boeing Long Beach and the observably large leap in logic suggesting platform termination as a result, appear to be part of a well coordinated effort — again — to render as self-fulfilling prophecy SECDEF Gates’ unfounded insistence on ending production of the world’s most successful strategic/tactical airlifter. GHH notes that $60,000,000 ,with TransRecap processes, begets TWO C-17s; one new, one accessible.”
Bloomfield Hills, MI, May 28, 2010 (PressReleasePoint– UPDATE) — Global HeavyLift Holdings, LLC, a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA http://www.ccr.gov) entity based in Michigan, believes it is appropriate to address, yet again, the continuing attacks, misstatements and outright analytical/factual errors carried by multiple media outlets globally against Boeing C-17. These are largely based on comments by Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert Gates, elements of the USAF, and others demanding an end to its production.
Objective Reportage
“While GHH feels the bulk of reportage in certain media outlets commendably takes on a aura of objectivity regarding IAF plans to acquire C-17, that aura, they contend, collapses with pointed and all-caps references in some to the US President and SECDEF’s stated desire to kill it; i.e., “Everyone agrees, except Obama and Gates. Maybe they know something others are not telling us… Why is India buying the C-17 when Barack Obama and Robert Gates want to junk it, asks Shantanu Guha Ray?”
“Since it is somewhat inarguable by virtue of unparalleled mission completion rates (verifiable through the US DoD) that Boeing C-17 is the best airlifter in the history of aviation, and possessed, as articulated by Boeing spokesman Jerry Drelling, of true strategic/tactical duality of mission capability, we’ll address with specificity the concern mentioned in several versions of a report ‘Maybe they (the President and SECDEF) know something others are not telling us.’
“‘The direct answer is, and with all due respect to the President and Dr. Gates, no, they do not ‘know something others are not telling us’, says Myron D. Stokes. GHH Managing Member.
….
“GHH observes that since people continue to be influenced by the numbers game and those creating an atmosphere of perceived fiscal responsibility as regards C-5 vs C-17, these numbers ought to prove intriguing:
A.) USD81,000,000 for one REAMP/RERP C-5 = one still near half century old airlifter which has been notoriously unreliable throughout its service life (current: 56% mission completion rate;i.e., half the time it’s flying, half the the time it’s not) and is all but useless in the operational realities of asymmetric and conventional warfare scenarios existing concomitantly — requiring rapid force projection of men and equipment directly to theater. C-5 requires significant airfield infrastructure, C-17 does not, as proven in Afghanistan, Iraq and multiple humanitarian/disaster missions.
B.) On the other hand, USD60,000,000 , when utilized in conjunction with a Congressionally approved Transformational Recapitalization defense platform acquisition process as outlined in the November 2004 issue of Defense AT&L, which allows the USAF to resell first generation C-17A models to the private sector for 140,000,000 (market value of C-17, as assessed by one of the most respected aviation consulting firms, is in the 90-140mil range) begets a new C-17 ( note: current “flyaway” costs to the AF are in the range of 200-230mil; closer to 200mil as processes of continuous improvement are expanded and economies of scale from multi-year orders are applied.) ordered from Boeing, and by State Department mandate, immediate access to the sold C-17A in times of national emergency, or as needed.
Result: A 21,000,000 per plane savings (actually more, since it is known that the C-5 retrofit cost stated by Lockheed-Martin, will again prove unreasonably low and rapidly invoking another breach of Nunn-McCurdy) and two C-17s; one new and one with at least half its service life remaining, possessing a combined capacity of 174 tons.’
“‘Shall we talk again’, says Stokes, about ‘best use of available defense dollars’ and leave out the over-invoking of President Eisenhower, a man of underestimated wisdom who was only referring to unreasonable waste in the defense industrial complex, and not actions that would cripple the country’s ability to defend itself against enemies past, present and future… including China?’”
Go to full release: http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/boeing-analysis-indian-air-force-c17-order-not-risk-us-dod-seeking-limit-boeing-participation-2011-b
http://www.slideshare.net/GHHLLC2/indian-air-force-iaf-pending-order-for-10-boeing-c17s-not-at-risk-as-suggested-us-dod-actions-imply-nonboeing-future
The depth and objectivity of this analysis is nonetheless appreciated.
Myron D. Stokes
Managing Member
Global HeavyLift Holdings, LLC
http://www.emotionreports.com
As publisher of http://www.OC180NEWS.com, we do not take a position on the question of whether or not production of the C-17 should continue beyond the 223 planes already in the pipeline.
We would like to provide independent consideration of this important question, but we have not been able to obtain any cooperation from the U.S. Air Force. We have made repeated attempts to get the Air Force to provide the details behind their conclusion that 223 planes is enough, and even though they have repeatedly promised us the information, they have not once followed through with either useful information or an interview opportunity.
So, our mission here is not to question the decision of the Department of Defense, but rather only to track the process toward its conclusion. We stand by our headline because the May 28th statement of administration policy was Unprecedented and, in our view, a very serious blow to continued production of the C-17. Rightly or wrongly, it now appears the Obama Administration is ready and willing to use a Presidential veto, or the threat thereof, to end C-17 production. Last year at this time, although the Administration was clearly on record of wanting to end production, they only used the veto threat for the F-22, and not the C-17. Since that threat last year carried the day and the F-22 was not funded, we believe there is a very real possibility the threat of a veto for the C-17 could have the same result this year.
Colleagues: Your position is understood and appreciated.
The status of C-17 is indeed tenuous, but not by any means unrecoverable, especially when one considers the fact of no substantive, provable, publicly or internally available data whatsoever to support the demand for C-17 line termination.
We daresay this is a reality readily ascertained by references provided over the months and years by our associates both in industry and government.
To borrow a line from what is considered to be one of the best examples of advertising prose in the history of world, “The Penalty of Leadership” by Theodore McManus, “That which deserves to live, lives…”
Thank you again for your insightful comments and atypical journalism in this matter.
Myron D. Stokes
Managing Member
Global HeavyLift Holdings, LLC
http://www.ccr.gov
http://www.emotionreports.com