Intermission in the Fight to Keep C-17 Long Beach Production Line Open, a continuing Monday morning series on the 5,000 jobs at stake in Long Beach.

Congress was on their week long Memorial Day vacation this past week, so the legislative battle over the C-17 was out for intermission. Never fear, there is plenty to write about, as your Editors unexpectedly discovered.

Remember when American soldiers and Marines were dieing daily from IEDs in Iraq? Lately, it still happens, but not so much. Why? Partly it is because there are less attacks, but another important reason is because of things called MRAPs. What the heck is an MRAP, and what does it have to do with C-17s? the answer-plenty.

Your Editors are tracking this subject not only because of the 5,000 local jobs on the chopping block, but also because it is a good test of the congress's and the Obama Administration's ability to curtail spending, particularly in these recessionary times. The Administration, which represents the user of the planes, i.e., the United States Air Force, has staked out a position saying no more of the airlifters are needed. Just about everybody else seems to be on the side of maintaining production so we don't loose jobs.

The next test in this contest could come this week as the House and Senate attempt to reconcile their two different supplemental funding bills. The House version includes 2.3 billion for 8 more C-17s, but the Senate version does not include any funds for more of the planes. Shortly following resolution of this contest, there will be the 2010 defense budget, which as submitted to congress, does not include any funds for continued production. We will be watching and reporting back to our readers as this drama unfolds.

Putting aside all the political talk on this subject, the underlying question is weather or not the US Air Force really needs more of the planes. To dig deeper into this central issue, your Editors put a few questions to the Air Force. By our questions, we have been trying to get information about the rate at which the planes are being used and how far in the future is the forecasted first retirement of a C-17. Your Editors struggle with imagining how the Air Force could decide weather or not they need more planes, if they don't know when the planes will start to wear out.

To this end we asked the Air Force 6 questions related to this subject back on May 13. Last week we reported their answer to the question about their C-17 retirement plans and they told us, essentially, they did not have any such plans as yet. In our continuing attempt to get the Air Force on record about when the existing fleet will start to wear out and the rates at which they are currently being utilized, last week we asked the Air Force how they were doing on answering our questions. Here is there answer: "These questions require lengthy research and have been distributed to 4 different directorates. The coordination has taken tremendous effort." A rather surprising answer from an organization which has already decided that exactly 205 C-17s is the right number.

At this point, your Editors are beginning to expect that this legislative match will be over before the Air Force gets around to answering our questions. Thus, we started looking elsewhere for some hints about weather or not more C-17s might be needed. We were surprised, to say the least, at what we found, and this brings us back to the subject of MRAPs and the war in Iraq. It seems that the need to continue C-17 production has a much more current aspect than fleet replacement upon aircraft retirement.

MRAPs are Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles and they are what we are using to protect our troops in Iraq. Back in 2007, the need to get these lifesaving vehicles to Iraq was so urgent, the US Transportation Command started shipping them by air, rather than by sea. The problem is, these vehicles are heavy--depending on the model, around 14 tons. This means there are only 3 planes in the entire world which can transport them. Those 3 planes are the C-5, the C-17, and the Russian Antonov An-124. The Air Force started contracting with two Russian companies back in October 2007 to transport the MRAPs to Iraq using the An-124 and their Russian crews. The Air Force did this because there were not enough available C-17s and C-5s to handle the job.

This situation could be considered extraordinary because the US normally transports heavy armor overseas by ship, not by air. Nevertheless, due to the changing conditions in the war in Iraq, US lives were saved by getting the MRAPs to Iraq quickly. This meant by air and it meant contracting out part of the work to Russian companies, Russian planes, and Russian crews.

Stay tuned as the legislative match continues.