US Air Force Weighs C-17 Globemaster Restart; IAF’s 11-Aircraft Fleet Could Benefit

The US Air Force is examining whether Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III production line can be revived, more than a decade after the last aircraft rolled off the assembly line, according to Air Mobility Command chief Lt Gen Daniel Tulley.

The review forms part of a broader Analysis of Alternatives for the future airlift fleet, and will assess whether existing tooling, machinery and the industrial base can be restored, along with the cost of a modernised version of the aircraft.

Boeing has said it was encouraged by prior approaches from unnamed existing C-17 operators exploring a production restart, though the identities of those operators have not been named.

For India, the development carries direct relevance. The Indian Air Force operates a fleet of 11 C-17 Globemaster IIIs, all flown by No. 81 Squadron ‘Skylords’ based at Hindon Air Force Station under Western Air Command.

Backbone of India’s strategic airlift

India signed its first C-17 contract with the United States in 2011, with the first aircraft delivered in 2013 and the eleventh and final airframe handed over in August 2019, making the IAF the largest C-17 operator outside the United States.

The Skylords squadron has since become the backbone of India’s rapid deployment capability, ferrying troops and heavy equipment to forward bases in Ladakh during the 2020-21 border standoff with China and ferrying oxygen tankers during the Covid pandemic.

The squadron has also flown numerous overseas evacuation and humanitarian missions, including the 2015 Yemen crisis, the Nepal earthquake, the South Sudan evacuation, and the 2021 airlift of Indian nationals and Afghan partners out of Kabul after the Taliban takeover.

The C-17 can carry a maximum payload of about 77.5 tonnes at a maximum take-off weight of roughly 265 tonnes, powered by four Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofan engines that give it a cruise speed of around 940 km/h. Its short-field capability allows it to operate from austere high-altitude airstrips, a critical requirement along India’s Himalayan frontier.

Since production ended in 2015, sustaining this fleet has depended on spares support and depot-level overhauls rather than fresh acquisitions. A restarted line, even a modernised one, would give India and other C-17 operators a path to expand or replenish fleets that Boeing had otherwise stopped building.

The US Air Force’s own requirement stems from its Next Generation Airlift effort, intended to eventually replace both the C-17A and the larger C-5M Galaxy, a programme still years from fielding a finished aircraft.