Extra Lift

Australia contemplates additional C-17s and KC-30s

Airlift has a strategic and diplomatic effect all of its own – witness the RAAF’s ability to rapidly deploy four Boeing C-17s to Japan to support humanitarian operations after the 2011 tsunami, or more recently, the deployment of C-17s and an Airbus KC-30 to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to support recovery operations after the MH17 shoot-down over Ukraine, and C-17 munitions delivery flights into northern Iraq.

Thanks to those ADF visionaries who initiated the AIR 8000 Phase 3 (C-17) and AIR 5402 (KC-30) projects in the early to mid-2000s tomeet the need for ‘responsive global airlift’, deployments such as these have given Australia strategic reach and cemented its place as a global ‘middle power’.