C-17 Globemaster III: The Moose, 823 Kabul Evacuees and a Tampa Mix-Up

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Crews call the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III the Moose because its pressure relief vents groan during refueling. The Air Force wanted a replacement for the aging C-141 Starlifter that could fly oceans like a strategic transport and land on short dirt strips like a tactical one, and McDonnell Douglas won in 1981 with a design descended from the YC-15. The program nearly died: in 1990 Dick Cheney cut the order from 210 to 120, the prototype was overweight and buggy, and in October 1992 a static test wing failed at 128 percent of its design limit load instead of 150 percent. In late 1993 the Pentagon gave the company two years to fix things or stop at 40 planes, and it absorbed a loss of nearly $1.5 billion.

Engineers later found the test jacks had loaded the wing incorrectly. The C-17 entered service in 1995, won the Collier Trophy, flew half of the strategic airlift missions over Kosovo and carries the presidential limousine ahead of Air Force One. On one August 2021 flight out of Kabul it carried a record 823 people. In 2024 an Indian Air Force C-17 flew 2,600 kilometers to drop MARCOS commandos and boats beside the hijacked MV Ruen, rescuing 17 sailors and capturing 35 pirates. Boeing closed the Long Beach line in 2015 after 279 aircraft, and as of June 2025 restarting it was under discussion.

• Four Pratt & Whitney F117 engines from the Boeing 757 family each make over 40,000 pounds of thrust, and upward-venting thrust reversers let the jet back up.
• Its cargo floor flips from rollers to a flat surface for a 69-ton M1 Abrams, and it can seat 102 paratroopers.
• Since 1999 C-17s have flown five-hour Operation Deep Freeze runs from New Zealand to McMurdo Station, past a point of safe return.
• The RAF used a C-17 to carry Queen Elizabeth II's coffin from Edinburgh to London in 2022.
• A 2010 crash at Elmendorf killed four crew, the only fatal hull loss, and a fatigued crew in 2012 landed at tiny Peter O. Knight Airport instead of MacDill.