£260 Million to Support Fleet into Next Decade
British Minister for Defence Equipment & Support, Guto Bebb, announced on 17 February that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has entered into a £260 million under the US Foreign Military Sales system for support for the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) fleet of eight C-17 GLOBEMASTER IIIs into the next decade. The new agreement, which will come into effect in 2021, extends and builds on support arrangements made when the aircraft first entered British service in 2001 and which will end in 2022. As part of the UK’s Joint Rapid Reaction Force, the C-17 provides the RAF with long-range strategic heavy-lift ability, meaning it can deliver equipment and supplies close to where UK troops are on operations.
The bilateral deal will deliver spares, design services, reliability and maintenance improvements, access to technical resources and RAF aircrew and maintenance crew training programmes.
It will sustain more than 50 jobs in the UK through the support of a Boeing team at RAF Brize Norton, the home of the C-17 fleet; further work will be carried out in the US at Boeing facilities in San Antonio, TX.
“Our C-17 giants take everything from heavy equipment to vital troops to where they’re needed right across the globe. This deal keeps them in the air into the next decade and affirms our leadership, alongside our American allies, in providing global security and humanitarian aid as we stand together in defence of our shared values,” stated Bebb. RAF C-17s provided vital humanitarian assistance following Hurricane Irma last summer.
“The signature of this deal has come about through the close relationship theMoD has with our counterparts in the US, and will deliver world-leading support for the front line. It means the UK will be able to continue to depend on the C-17’s remarkable capabilities in support of operations all over the world,” observed Chief of Materiel (Air) at Defence Equipment & Support, Air Marshal Julian Young.
TM