Charleston's C-17s Flying Wherever These's a Runway.

Like giant, gray pelicans, three C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft earlier this year lumbered off the runway at Pope Air Force Base, N.C. On board were 172 paratroopers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, from nearby Fort Bragg.

The C-17s flew more than 10 hours nonstop--refueling twice in the air--to deliver their passengers to a remote drop zone near the Ukraine-Polish border. Over the drop zone, the paratroopers tumbled out, parachuting to the ground as part of a joint training exercise with the Ukrainians.

The operation illustrates the C-17's ability to deliver combat troops and their equipment to far away destinations, said Air Force Col. (Brig. Gen. select) Vern M. "Rusty" Findley II, commander of the 437th Airlift Wing, which is headquartered at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

The base--located 16 miles north of South Carolina's historic port by the same name--is home to nearly two thirds of the C-17s deployed by the Air Force, Findley told National Defense. They may be the busiest transports in the Air Force, he said.

In 1999, Findley explained, the 437th--and the 315th Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve organization, also based at Charleston--flew more than 2,000 missions, delivering 2,326 tons of cargo to 153 countries.

"We went to almost every country that has an airfield," he said.

Charleston C-17s flew more than 1,200 missions in support of NATO operations against Yugoslavia, according to Findley. They lifted Army tanks, Apache helicopters and force-protection components into the small airport at Tirana, Albania.

After NATO ground troops moved into Kosovo, Charleston crews flew into the airport at Pristina. At Christmas time, they delivered 16 pallets of shoeboxes full of donated candy, toys and school supplies to Skopje, Macedonia.

"I really look at Kosovo as the 'coming-out party' for the C-17," Findley said. "Ninety five percent of our missions were on time. That's better than the airlines."

The C-17s had other work to do in 1999, besides Kosovo, Findley said. During that same year, Charleston aircraft also delivered cargo to:

* U.S. forces enforcing the "no-fly" zones in Iraq.

* Peacekeepers in Darwin, Australia, preparing to stop ethnic bloodletting in East Timor, Indonesia.

* Victims of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras and Nicaragua.

This year also has been busy for the air-lifters. After terrorists attacked a Navy destroyer, USS Cole, in the Yemeni harbor of Aden, a crew from the 315th flew the bodies of five sailors to Ramstein Air Force Base, in Germany. Another 315th crew airlifted the remains from Ramstein to Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, for port mortuary processing.

In January, Charleston C-17s are scheduled to begin flying special operations low-level II missions, inserting and extracting U.S. commandos during international crises, Findley said. Aircrews have been training to perform this mission, covertly when necessary, 24 hours per day, seven days a week, he noted.

Breaking News

"When there's breaking news on CNN, I stand by," said Findley, "because in short order we may be tasked to go somewhere. If you watch the news, you'll see our logo on ramps all over the world."

What keeps the C-17 so busy, Findley said, is its sheer utility. For one thing, he said, it is big, stretching 174 feet from nose to tail and nearly 170 feet from one wing tip to the other. That's more than half a football field in both directions.

The C-17's cargo compartment is 18 feet wide, capable of carrying a payload of 84 tons. That's large enough to accommodate one of the Army's 70-ton MiA1 Abrams main battle tanks or three Bradley infantry-fighting vehicles, Findley said.

In 1998, a C-17 from Charleston transported Keiko--the 10,000-pound killer whale featured in the "Free Willy" movies--and a 35,000-pound transport container from Oregon to Iceland.

The Air Force has other large transports. The C-141 Starlifter--made by Lockheed-Georgia, a predecessor to Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems, of Marietta, Ga.--is 168 feet long, but its cargo compartment is only 10 feet wide, and its payload less than 35 tons.

The C-5 Galaxy--also produced by Lockheed Martin--has a length of 248 feet and a cargo bay able to accommodate two Abrams tanks or six Bradleys. The C-5, however, requires a 4,900-foot, hardened runway for landings, limiting its usefulness in undeveloped or isolated locations.

Also, both the C-141, which has been flying since 1963, and the C-5, which debuted in 1968, are nearing the end of their service lives. The C-141 is being retired. Charleston's 16th Airlift Squadron of C-141s was deactivated this summer. The Air Force plans to update many of its C-5s.

The C-17 is much newer than the other two. Charleston received the Air Force's first operational squadron of them--the 17th Airlift--in 1995. Two additional squadrons soon followed. A fourth is planned. At press time, Charleston had 40 of the 68 C-17s being flown by the Air Force. The service has contracted with the Boeing Company, of Seattle, to build 120 of the aircraft by 2004. Of those, Charleston is slated to receive a total of 54.

"That's a good contingent for us," Findley said.

The C-17 is "a really sophisticated aircraft, Findley said. "It's state-of-the-art, but it's not hard to learn how to fly."

Findley, who previously commanded a wing of KC-135 tankers and has more than 3,300 flight hours in various aircraft to his credit, was speaking from personal experience. Since coming to Charleston in March, he said, "I've already got more than 100 hours in the C-17. I go up and fly with these young guys, and they have really got it down."

The C-17 has a fully integrated electronic cockpit and advanced cargo systems that permit it to be operated by a crew of three--a pilot, copilot and loadmaster.

A C-141, in contrast, has a crew of five, including those just mentioned, plus two flight engineers, with a navigator added for airdrops. The C-5 has seven crewmembers, with two additional loadmasters.

Set and Forget

On the C-17, flight engineers and navigators are replaced by computers, said Lt. Col. Andy Murphy, chief of standardization and evaluation for the 437th. "It's pretty much set and forget," he said.

The C-17 has an electronic navigator to help with airdrops, Murphy explained. "The computer provides a female voice that counts down, 'five, four, three, two, one,'" Murphy said. "When it's time to drop, the voice says, 'green light.' When we leave the drop zone, the voice says, 'red light.' That means the drops are over."

C-17 computers permit the aircraft to be flown on autopilot, even while in formation, for as long as 11 to 12 hours, Murphy said.

The three crewmembers do have to take on tasks that others used to do, Murphy said. "With the C-141s, we used to have flight engineers to service the oil in the engines," he explained. "With the C-17s, the three crew members do that."

The smaller crews make for more stress, Murphy said. "But it's not stress that we can't overcome by training." Much of the training is done on the two C-17 simulators at Charleston, Murphy said. Plans are eventually to add a third simulator, he noted.

The C-17 is powered by four Pratt & Whitney PW2040 turbofan engines, each providing 40,440 pounds of thrust. Each engine is large enough for a full-grown man to enter standing straight up.

Exhaust from these engines is used to generate lift, enabling the C-17 to make steep approaches at relatively slow speeds.

This technology enables C-17s to land on "austere, unimproved runways" of 3,000 feet, according to Lt. Col. Edmund G. Memi, public affairs chief of the 437th. "They don't even need that much distance," he said. "I've seen them land within 1,500 feet.

"The C-141 can't do that," Memi said. "Neither can the C-5. The C-130 can, but it can't take the outsize cargo, like the C-17."

What Charleston's aircrews especially like about the C-17 is its maneuverability, both in the air and on the ground.

In the air, the C-17 "flies a lot like a fighter," explained Murphy. The electronic flight controls make it a lot more responsive than most transports, he said.

"It has power steering," he said, "and instead of the yoke-style steering devices that most transports have, the C-17 has a flight stick." The flight stick makes it easier to see the heads-up display that pops up, "like in a fighter," Murphy said.

Parallel Parking

On the ground, the C-17 can be backed up and turned while in reverse, almost as agilely as a car, pilots agreed. "You can parallel park these things," said Findley. In an era of rapid deployments to isolated, often unimproved airfields, that is a useful ability to have, he noted.

In Tirana, for example, the airfield often was packed with planes, said Murphy. "There were a lot of users--Air Force, Army--a real flurry of activity," he explained. "We had to get the aircraft off the runway as quickly as possible. We'd land, come to a halt and back up into a line of parked aircraft. We could get so close that our wings were practically touching."

In 1995, a C-17, which had flown to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, needed to have an engine replaced, remembered Chuck Lundberg, on-site engine manager for Boeing at Charleston. C-17s flew in the replacement engine, parts and personnel to do the repairs.

"It was our first austere engine change," he said. "The airfield was on a small island. The runway was small, and we had to share it with Navy fighters. Two C-17s had to land, back up a long distance--together--and park off the runway. It was interesting."

Boeing has been providing maintenance support for the C-17 since 1991. Under concept known as flexible sustainment, Boeing provides logistics support, including heavy maintenance, painting and some major inspections of the aircraft.

Engine maintenance is conducted by Pratt & Whitney, teamed with United Airlines, for a dual-coast repair and overhaul capability.

Day-to-day maintenance is performed at bases such as Charleston by Air Force personnel.

"Make no mistake about it," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Sams Jr., director of Boeing's C-17 field services. "It's folks in Air Force BDUs (battle-dress uniforms) who maintain these aircraft."

The Air Force plans to decide by 2003--currently the final program year for C-17 procurement--whether to continue with flexible sustainment, move to traditional Air Force organic depot maintenance or pursue contractor logistics support, Sams explained.

As busy as Charleston Air Force Base is, it must repeatedly contend with a force of nature--the hurricane. The base was damaged heavily by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. A decade later, in 1999, the base had to launch all of its aircraft three times because of hurricanes.

Recovering from storm damage has required years of major reconstruction of base facilities, including hangars, offices, housing and even consumer services, such as post exchanges, restaurants and service stations.

Attention also has been paid to such esthetics as landscaping. The overall result, Meni said, is an attractive place for Air Force personnel and their families to live and work. The base, he noted, won fourth place--and a $50,000 cash award--in the Air Mobility Command's annual base appearance competition.

The Air Force works hard at getting along with the residents of the greater Charleston area, Meni explained. Many residents, he said, now live underneath the flight paths of Charleston's C-17s, as they take off or glide in for landings.

The C-17's engines make a distinctive, high-pitched whine that has to irritate people in the flight path from time to time, Meni said. But he noted that most of the training flights are done at no lower than 500 feet, in accordance with Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration directives.

Complaints, he said, are investigated and a report issued within one to 10 working days. But most Charleston residents are pretty understanding, he said.

One of them is Carlos Anderson, a bus driver who lives in North Charleston. "Nothing's falling off any of my shelves," he said. "We get more noise from the trucks on I-26 than from the C-17s."

Future Army to 'FedEx' Vehicles to the Battlefield

The Army's future combat vehicle, a yet-to-be-defined platform that the service wants to field in 2012, potentially could be "FedExed" to the battlefield, according to the officer in charge of the project.

The so-called "future combat system," (FCS) is in the early stages of concept design, but the Army already knows that it should weigh between 10 tons and 20 tons. At that weight, the vehicle would be transportable on a tactical cargo aircraft, such as the Air Force C-130 Hercules. But the Army also is planning for "deployability using commercial assets," said Lt. Col. Marion Van Fosson, the Army's program manager for the FCS. The project currently is managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

"It turns out that the actual volume constraint inside the C-130 is generally a little less than the volume/weight constraint in commercial assets," Van Fosson told a conference of the Army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, in Dearborn, Mich.

"You might be able, so to speak, to FedEx our force to near theater and then use our lift assets to go from near theater into the theater," he explained.

"That is [just] one concept" Van Fosson cautioned. "It may not be the right answer." The bottom line, he said, is that "we have to look for opportunities to move things rapidly in the theater."

Ideally, however, the Army hopes that it can afford to build its own tactical cargo aircraft, which may come in the form of a large helicopter.

Being able to move vehicles in and out of the theater vertically would be preferable in many cases, said Maj. Gen. James Snider, chief of staff for research, development and acquisition at the Army Materiel Command. The Army currently can transport lighter cargo in the Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters, but in the future, the service would want a helicopter that can carry a 20-ton vehicle. This large aircraft is known as the "future transport rotorcraft" (FTR).

"The transition to FTR is something we are taking very seriously," Snider said in an interview, during a conference of the Vertical Flight Society, in Arlington, Va.

The C-130 requires runways, which is the main reason FTR is becoming increasingly desirable to the Army, Snider said. There are some "technology challenges" in building such a sturdy helo, such as the need for more advanced materials and propulsion systems, he said. Cost also is a problem, since the Army has no money in its budget for FTR today. It would be a "daunting" effort, Snider said.

In addition to a large helicopter, the Army also is considering a large tilt-rotor hybrid plane, called the quad-rotor, made by a Bell-Boeing partnership.

Sandra I. Erwin