The first of the ten Boeing C-17 Globemaster III Strategic Airlift aircraft ordered by the IAF under the Foreign Military Sales programme of the US government in a deal worth $4.1 billion, is under assembly at Boeing’s Long Beach facility in California.
Indian embassy officials, senior IAF officers and local elected officials including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, drove ceremonial rivets into the aircraft as they went through the ‘major join’ ceremony, where sections of the fuselage are joined and the aircraft first begins looking like one. The first aircraft is expected to be delivered to the IAF in May 2013 and the tenth before the end of 2014. The IAF is contemplating an additional six to ten C-17s and will be facing enormous pressure from US lawmakers who would like to see those additional orders materialise soon to keep the production facility open. Outside of US, India will be the largest C-17 operator. “The defence relationship between India and the US is an important dimension of our strategic partnership” said Ambassador N Parthasarathi, Consul General of India, San Francisco.