Secretary of Defense Robert Gates threatens veto, The Europeans get ready for their first C-17, and the military airlifts more heavy MRAPs into Afghanistan.

AS the budget matchup over C-17 production continues in Washington, Boeing will deliver the first C-17 Globemaster III advanced airlifter to the 12-nation Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) consortium during a ceremony at Boeing's Long Beach, Calif., final assembly facility on Tuesday, July 14. This is the first of three C-17s that will be delivered this year to the consortium of 10 NATO nations and two Partnership for Peace nations.  

With the Obama Administration not backing down from their position that no more C-17s are needed by the US Air Force, the military is rushing thousands more of the heavy weighted mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles to Afghanistan. As we have previously reported, there are only three planes in the world which can transport these multi-ton machines--the out-of-production aging C-5, the C-17, and the Russian AN-124.

The military action on the ground in Afghanistan is accelerating and the Taliban is getting more sophisticated in their IEDs. Thus, the need to transport more of the lifesaving vehicles into theater is urgent. the US Transportation Command has transported more than 3020 MRAPs into Afghanistan, with about half going directly by air and the other half going by some combination of airlift and sealift.
Since the big transport planes can only carry 2 to 4 MRAPs in a trip, delivering that number of vehicles means a lot of flights and a lot of planes.

Not only is the military moving a whole lot of heavy trucks very quickly over a very long distance, it is gearing up to replace those very same trucks with a new and improved model. The new versions built specifically for the Afghan terrain, dubbed M-ATV, should start shipping later this year with all deliveries completed by next Spring. All this points to the need for lots of heavy airlift.

As we have previously noted in these pages, although the Obama Administration has said it does not want any more C-17s, congress can't resist the temptation to keep buying more planes, or the voter fallout from canceling the program. Congress passed and President Obama signed the fiscal 2009 supplemental funding bill with funds for 8 more of the big planes. There was hardly a whisper from the administration about the additional 2 billion in funds for planes they say are not needed.

The next bout in this competition is the 2010 Defense budget and now we are starting to hear the possibility of some stronger resistance to unneeded spending. If the Administration is unable, or unwilling, to lobby their plans into next year's defense budget, the only option left is the veto threat. We never heard anything close to a veto threat when the congress was spending billions more than the Administration said was needed for the supplemental funding bill. Now, the "veto" word is spoken. In specific response to a question about continuing to fund the F-22, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said "Secretary Gates has outlined a very robust plan to change our defense procurement and to invest in weapons systems and in manpower that make the most sense for the future. He and others have determined that that's {the F-22} not part of that program and if that money is contained in the bill, the Secretary of Defense and advisors here, as I said yesterday, would recommend that the President veto that bill, yes. " One could argue that the same logic would apply to the C-17.

Responding to a question about his priorities for the 2010 defense budget, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on June 30 during a press conference, "Well, I've indicated to some of the chairmen and the ranking minorities of the committees what I -- issues that I think would be a problem. I'm not going to detail what that list is but I'll give you one more example. It'll be the vehicle program for future combat systems {also a Boeing Integrated Defense System project}. But so far -- you know, the truth of the matter is, we haven't seen the full Senate Armed Services Committee mark yet, but based on what I've been told about the House part and the partial information I have about the Senate mark, the F-22 and the second engine for the F-35 seem to be about the only main issues where they have gone anywhere different than what we put forward." And what they put forward was the termination, at 205 planes, of the C-17 program.

Things your Editors will be watching as the C-17 Long Beach production line contest continues:
*The future of the Airbus 400M military turboprop transport program. Termination of this long overdue and not-yet-in-the air European military transport plane could become evident by the end of this month. The U.K., France, Germany and four other governments are reviewing commitments to buy 180 of these planes and could make contract decisions by the end of July. Termination of the 400M, or a sharp reduction in orders, could translate into more orders for the C-17.
* The location of a second assembly line for Boeing's 787 commercial jet. It has been rumored that Boeing's Long Beach C-17 plant is on the short list of four potential sites. Boeing officially denies this, but the rumors persist.
* The potential retirement of the Air Force's oldest C-5 transport
planes. The supplemental funding bill repealed a ban on retiring these planes and that could, but definitely not for certain, translate into more orders for the C-17.