The U.S. State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the NATO Support and Procurement Agency of C-17 Maintenance and related equipment for an estimated cost of $150 million. NATO Support and Procurement Agency as Lead Nation has requested to buy contractor logistics support for the C-17 Strategic Airlift Capability program; U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services; and other related elements of logistics and program support. The proposed sale will improve NATO’s capability to meet current and future threats by improving and maintaining a flexible strategic airlift capability. The multinational Heavy Airlift Wing already has C-17s in its inventory and will have no difficulty absorbing these additional services into its armed services. The principal contractor will be The Boeing Company, Arlington, VA.
The Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) is a multinational initiative that provides its participating nations assured access to military airlift capability to address the growing needs for both strategic airlifts and tactical airlifts. SAC, established in 2008, is an independent, multinational program that provides the capability of transporting equipment and personnel over long distances to its 12 member nations by owning and operating three Boeing C-17 Globemaster III long range cargo aircraft. The SAC is based at the Hungarian Defence Forces Pápa Air Base in Western Hungary. Each participating nation owns a share of the available flight hours of the SAC C-17’s that can be used for missions to serve the needs of their national defense, NATO, EU or UN commitments as well as humanitarian relief efforts.
Hungary plays a special role in the SAC as the host nation. The SAC C-17’s are registered and flagged in Hungary bearing the national military aircraft insignia of the nation. Member states are Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and the United States. All of these are NATO member states with the exception of Partnership for Peace country Sweden. Although the Strategic Airlift Capability relies on certain NATO support structures, it lies outside the command and control of NATO, EU, Partnership for Peace, UN or any other organization that SAC members belong to. The governance of the Strategic Airlift Capability is organized through two cooperating structures, the SAC Steering Board with support by NATO’s Airlift Management (NAM) Programme Board.
The first aircraft was delivered on 14 July 2009. The C-17 Globemasters are based at Pápa Air Base in Hungary. The McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft that was developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas. The C-17 Globemaster III is a strategic transport aircraft, able to airlift cargo close to a battle area. The size and weight of U.S. mechanized firepower and equipment have grown in recent decades from increased air mobility requirements, particularly for large or heavy non-palletized outsize cargo. It has a length of 174 feet (53 m) and a wingspan of 169 feet 10 inches (51.77 m), and uses about 8% composite materials, mostly in secondary structure and control surfaces. The C-17 is powered by four Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofan engines.
