Page 10 - October 2018

In all, 180 C-17s have been delivered to or ordered for For cargo and personnel going into Afghanistan,
the USAF. Examples have also been acquired to the
RAF, the RAAF and the Canadian Forces, which
designates it as the CC-177. All C-17s, regardless of
the service flying them, are identical.
Canada has purchased four of these versatile
machines, with the first entering service in August
2007 and the last in May 2008. Because the USAF
agreed to give up spaces on the production line, only
22 months elapsed between the time the program
was announced until the last aircraft arrived.
Canadian CC-177 crews train with the USAF, logging
40 simulator “rides” and three flights with
experienced crews — one in daylight, one at night
using night vision goggles and then a check ride.
Because the Canadian Forces do not have a C-17
simulator, refresher courses must be done every three
month by booking time on a U.S. Air National Guard
base at Jackson, Mississippi, then sending crews on a
long trip to it via commercial airlines.
In Canadian service, it supplements the CF's long-
serving CC-150 Polaris transports
and leased AN-124s.
these types carried personnel and supplies to supply
bases, where their loads would be broken down and
loaded onto trucks or CC-130 Hercules aircraft for
movement into Kandahar. The CC-177, on the other
hand, can fly directly from Canada in Kandahar. It is
not normally used in that way, “”but we have the
capability to do so,” said Jackson, who by last
summer was a veteran of 160 flights into Iraq and
Afghanistan. “We can be anywhere in the world in 24
hours.” He said the CC-177 can be called a
“stractical” transport because it efficiently combines
the roles of tactical and strategic transport aircraft.
“It can fly long distances around the world — for 13
hours — and still do your tactical approach and
landing into Kandahar all in the same day. To me, it’s
just an amazing aircraft. It’s just so much fun to fly.
For the Canadian Forces, we’re just scratching the
surface of what this aircraft can do.”
For example, it can carry 18 pallets (14 pallets “on the
floor” and four pallets on the aircraft’s rear cargo
ramp) or 36 litter patients. Jackson once flew 25
injured Americans from Ramstein in Germany to San
Antonio, Texas. And while tasked to help the USAF to
evacuate American patients from the path of a
hurricane in 2007, he had the frightening experience
of having a passenger enter cardiac arrest. Air traffic
control was highly co-operative that day, with the
result that the aircraft was able to make an
emergency landing. “The patient survived!” he
reported. “It was pretty amazing.” As a troop carrier,
it can ferry 102 personnel in its standard
configuration or 188 on palletized seats. “That’s four
Herc loads,” said Jackson, who has hauled
snowmobiles to the Canadian Rangers in the Arctic,
trucks, boats, remote-control submarines, Sea King
and Griffon helicopters and a P-40 fighter scheduled
for restoration. On the ground, the CC-177’s ability
“to turn on a dime” means more aircraft can be
handled on an airport apron. Its estimated eight C-
17s can fit themselves into the space that three AN-
124s would need. The CC-177’s versatility is
increased by its ability to let vehicles drive on or drive
off, and its “combat offload” capability, which uses
the rollers in the cargo compartment’s floors to
rapidly offload cargo pallets.