The next article in a continuing Monday morning series.

First, a recap. Round 1, the Obama Administration, as represented by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (the Challengers), announced on April, 6, 2009, their plans to end production of C-17s.
Round 2, the Defenders, The Boeing Company and a bipartisan host of elected officials from around the country, come out swinging fast and furious in a lobbying attempt to keep the production line open.
Round 3, no funding for more planes was included in the Challengers' fiscal 2010 defense budget and the submitted budget included funds for an orderly shut down of the C-17 production line.
Round 4, the US House of Representatives passed the supplemental funding bill including funds for 8 more C-17s; Senate Appropriations Committee voted out a bill with no C-17 funds, the Defenders were lead to expect funds will be added on Senate floor. Despite his previous expressions of support, U.S. Representative Ed Royce, Republican, 40th District of California, serving Los Alamitos and Rossmoor, voted against the House bill.
Round 5, the match continues, deadline passes.

The most immediate legislation affecting C-17 production is the supplemental funding bill. The Challengers need this bill to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Defenders are trying to add in funding for more C-17s. The Challengers drew a line in the ring by calling for passage before the Memorial Day recess. That did not happen.

Following the House of Representatives, the Senate also passed a supplemental funding bill just before adjourning, but the two bills have not yet been reconciled and thus are not ready for President Obama's signature. Even though many Senate Defenders expected to have C-17 funds added to the bill, that did not happen either. The two different bills should go to the conference committee after congress returns from the Memorial Day recess, next week. That will be the last chance for more C-17s in this bill.

The basic arguments: the Challengers say the Air Force does not need additional C-17s , while the Defenders say the program provides needed jobs (5,000 of which are in Long Beach) and/or it would be a bad idea to shut down the last remaining large military airplane manufacturing operation in the US. The Air Force still has C-5's in operation, but they are no longer being manufactured. There are other planes being made in the US, but the C-17 is the only plane still in production which is large enough to carry the Army's 70 ton main battle tanks. If the C-17 production line is shuttered, and the Challengers are wrong about not needing any more of the planes, it would cost a lot to restart production. Would it cost more than we currently spend to produce planes that the Air Force says they don't need? The Defenders only say it would be a big number.

It occurred to your unbiased editors that there might be some better information about weather or not more planes are actually needed, instead of the not particularly useful political talk generally reported on this question.
We put several questions regarding this issue to the Air Force directly. They have responded to some of these questions and not others. They have assured your Editors that they are working on the unanswered questions. Our questions were all about the average age of the fleet, the fleet wide utilization, and the projected time at which existing C-17s would be reaching retirement age. Since this would seem to be pretty basic information regarding any decision about weather the taxpayers should buy more of the planes, we were a bit surprised that the Air Force could not easily provide this information. Note that they did not tell us the information was classified, they simply said they need more time to gather it.

Although the Air Force commonly flies planes beyond their original expected service life, planes do not last forever. Eventually, they need to be retired. One would think that if the Air Force was deciding weather or not to buy more of the planes, they would have at the tip of their collective tongues how much longer the current fleet is expected to last.

The Air Force did provide your Editors with this statement: "The AF has no plan to retire C-17s in the near future. At the appropriate time in the C-17 program life-cycle, the AF will evaluate a range of options that will range from service life extension programs to acquisition of a new platform based on current requirements."

This seems to be saying that the C-17 fleet is expected to last so far into the future, that the AF cannot imagine how they will replace them when they do retire. There is some logic to that answer, after all, they are still flying B-52s. Nevertheless, since the Senate passed the supplemental funding bill without the expected C-17 funding, we give the Challengers a victory for this round. But, this match is far from over. The supplemental funding bill will probably be resolved and forwarded to President Obama next week. Will it include more C-17s? Will the President sign it if it does? Probably yes and yes, but stay tuned.