{"id":22963488,"date":"2026-09-17T10:14:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/usaf-c-17-production-restart-analysis-of-alternatives-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T10:14:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:14:52","slug":"usaf-c-17-production-restart-analysis-of-alternatives-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/usaf-c-17-production-restart-analysis-of-alternatives-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"USAF Weighs Restarting C-17 Production: &#8220;Heck Yeah, But&#8230;&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n\r\n<p>Asked at a press roundtable whether the US Air Force would like to build new C-17s, the general in charge of American airlift did not hedge for long.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&ldquo;Heck yeah,&rdquo; said Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, head of Air Mobility Command. Then came the caveat, and the caveat is the actual story.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Tulley was speaking on 16 September 2026 at the Air &amp; Space Forces Association\u2019s Air, Space &amp; Cyber Conference. Boeing closed the Globemaster III line in Long Beach in 2015. The aircraft had marked the 35th anniversary of its first flight the previous day. And the Air Force is now, formally, asking whether the line can be switched back on.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>We <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/boeing-eyes-c-17-globemaster-production-restart\/\">covered Boeing\u2019s side of this in June<\/a>, when the company said it was &ldquo;encouraged&rdquo; by restart discussions with unnamed operators. This is the customer answering.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f6f8;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:26px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#0d1117\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Who said it:<\/strong> Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, commander, Air Mobility Command<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Where:<\/strong> AFA Air, Space &amp; Cyber Conference roundtable, 16 September 2026<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>C-17 first flight:<\/strong> 15 September 1991, Long Beach, California<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Production line closed:<\/strong> 2015, final aircraft completed at Long Beach<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>The mechanism:<\/strong> An Analysis of Alternatives to replace both the C-17A and the C-5M<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Current plan:<\/strong> A single Next-Generation Airlift platform from the mid-2040s<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Congress:<\/strong> In June 2026 the House Armed Services Committee directed a formal briefing on new C-17 production in the FY2027 NDAA report<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">&ldquo;Can we ever bring it back?&rdquo;<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The question Tulley is actually asking is not whether the Air Force wants more C-17s. Of course it does. The fleet is flogged. It took 73 C-17 loads to shift a single Patriot battalion from the Pacific to the Middle East, and the war with Iran has not made the demand curve any gentler.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The question is whether a closed aerospace production line is a thing you can actually reopen, and at what price.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard this my entire career. Once we terminate an assembly line, can we ever bring it back? Does somebody store all the machinery and the dies and whatnot, and can you bring that out? So we&rsquo;re asking that question.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley<\/strong> &mdash; commander, Air Mobility Command, 16 September 2026<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>That is a more honest framing than it might look. Tooling gets scrapped. Suppliers move on or go out of business. The people who knew how to build the thing retire. A production restart is not a switch; it is a small industrial archaeology project with a budget line attached.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>RAND looked at precisely this more than a decade ago and concluded that every version of a C-17 restart would need billions in new investment and carry real risk. Nothing since then has made that cheaper.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/c-5m-super-galaxy-landing-approach.jpg\" alt=\"A US Air Force C-5M Super Galaxy on final approach with its landing gear extended\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The other half of the problem: the C-5M Super Galaxy. The Air Force wants one future aircraft to replace both this and the C-17, despite the two being very different machines. US Air Force photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Rebuild the old jet, or build a new one?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Even if the line can be reopened, Tulley is not convinced a straight rerun is the right buy. He reached for the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/c-130-hercules\/\">C-130<\/a> as the analogy: the J-model is a far more capable aircraft than the Hercules he learned to fly, because it was rebuilt around newer technology rather than simply re-manufactured.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Is rebuilding a C-17, even if you make improvements &hellip; is that the best move? Or are there new technologies that we can incorporate into it so that it can defend itself, so that it&rsquo;s connected, it&rsquo;s networked, it does all the things that maybe the current C-17 doesn&rsquo;t do?&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley<\/strong> &mdash; commander, Air Mobility Command, 16 September 2026<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>That is the live tension. The Air Force\u2019s stated plan is still a single Next-Generation Airlift aircraft replacing both the C-17A and the C-5M from the mid-2040s, which in practice means the C-17 flies until it is about eighty years old. A restart would be a hedge against that timeline slipping, not a replacement for it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>And Boeing is not the only name in the room. Radia has been pitching the Air Force on Windrunner, a clean-sheet design physically larger than either the C-17 or the C-5, with a first flight targeted before the end of the decade. That target should be read as aspiration rather than schedule.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>There is also a route that makes the arithmetic less painful: partners. Australia, Canada, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom all fly Globemaster IIIs, and the multinational Strategic Airlift Capability operates three more. A restart with foreign orders attached is a different business case from a restart without them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/90daE-lAQo0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The tanker question is messier still<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Airlift was only half of what Tulley was asked about. The other half, Advanced Tanker Systems, is where the Air Force looks genuinely undecided.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Asked whether a future tanker has to have people in it, the AMC commander said plainly that he does not believe it does, pointing at the Navy\u2019s MQ-25 Stingray, which received its first low-rate initial production contract earlier this week, and asking how the Air Force scales that idea to the ranges it actually needs. His own assessment: the technology is there, or very nearly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/kc-46-pegasus-approaches-kc-135-boom.jpg\" alt=\"A US Air Force KC-46 Pegasus approaches the refuelling boom of a KC-135 Stratotanker at dusk\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A KC-46 Pegasus takes fuel from a KC-135. The KC-46 is the interim answer; what replaces the KC-135 fleet outright is still an open question. US Air Force photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>What did become clearer this week is that the Air Force has cooled on the idea that survivability means stealth. William Bailey, currently performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, said the service went to industry for survivable tanker designs and was underwhelmed by what came back.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;The stuff that was coming in for me might have been an incremental improvement, but it was not clear that that represented the next step, the next phase.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>William Bailey<\/strong> &mdash; performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, 15 September 2026<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>His conclusion is a reframing rather than a retreat. If the real requirement is tanker <em>access<\/em> to contested airspace, then the answer need not be a stealthy tanker at all; it can be everything else you put around the tanker to keep it alive. Escorting drones are on that list, and the Air Force has already flown a KC-135 with a loyal-wingman demonstrator.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>In the meantime the existing fleets get upgrades rather than replacements. Tulley singled out connectivity, and specifically the MAF NEXUS programme intended for every mobility aircraft, as something that has already changed how crews operate over Iran &mdash; passing threat information, coordinating tanker orbits, and in his telling saving both lives and aircraft.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What this actually means<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Nothing has been decided. No money has moved. An Analysis of Alternatives is the most procedural thing the Pentagon does, and the C-17 restart is one option inside it alongside service-life extension and a clean sheet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>But there is a reason this keeps coming back. Boeing built 279 Globemaster IIIs in all, closed the line, and the Air Force has spent every year since discovering it does not have enough strategic airlift. Congress has now asked for a briefing in writing. The customer has said &ldquo;heck yeah&rdquo; out loud. Somewhere in a warehouse, in theory, sit the dies.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Whether anyone can still find them is the multi-billion-dollar question.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: TWZ; Air &amp; Space Forces Magazine; Boeing; RAND Corporation; US Navy.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>Is the US Air Force restarting C-17 production?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Not yet. On 16 September 2026 the head of Air Mobility Command said a restart is being examined as one option within a formal Analysis of Alternatives to replace the C-17 and the C-5. No decision has been made, no funding committed, and service-life extension and clean-sheet designs remain on the table alongside it.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>When did C-17 production stop?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Boeing closed the C-17 Globemaster III line at Long Beach, California in 2015, with the final aircraft completed there that November. The type first flew on 15 September 1991, so the 35th anniversary of its first flight fell the day before the Air Force publicly discussed restarting production.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why is restarting an aircraft production line so difficult?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Tooling is scrapped or stored without records, suppliers exit the programme or go out of business, and the workforce that knew how to build the aircraft disperses. A RAND study more than a decade ago found every version of a C-17 restart would require billions in fresh investment and carry substantial risk.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What is Next-Generation Airlift?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">NGAL is the US Air Force plan to replace both the C-17A Globemaster III and the C-5M Super Galaxy with a single new aircraft type starting in the mid-2040s. Under that timeline the C-17 would remain in service until it is roughly eighty years old, which is part of why a restart keeps being discussed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Which countries operate the C-17 Globemaster III?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Besides the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom fly the type. The multinational Strategic Airlift Capability initiative operates three more. Foreign orders could help defray the cost of any production restart.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Will the next US Air Force tanker be uncrewed?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">It might be. The head of Air Mobility Command said in September 2026 that he does not believe a future tanker has to be crewed, citing the US Navy MQ-25 Stingray. The Air Force is weighing optionally crewed, autonomous and family-of-systems approaches under the Advanced Tanker Systems programme.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Has the Air Force abandoned the stealth tanker idea?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">It has reframed it. A senior acquisition official said industry submissions for a survivable tanker offered only incremental improvement, and that if the real requirement is access to contested airspace then the answer may be the systems protecting the tanker rather than making the tanker itself stealthy.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Can civilians fly in a military jet?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Not in a C-17, but fast-jet flights are genuinely available to civilians in types such as the MiG-29, L-39 Albatros and Hawker Hunter, including supersonic and edge-of-space sorties. MiGFlug arranges them; the current types and prices are listed on the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">flights and prices page<\/a>.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is the US Air Force restarting C-17 production?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Not yet. On 16 September 2026 the head of Air Mobility Command said a restart is being examined as one option within a formal Analysis of Alternatives to replace the C-17 and the C-5. 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MiGFlug arranges them; the current types and prices are listed on the flights and prices page.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/boeing-eyes-c-17-globemaster-production-restart\/\">Boeing Eyes C-17 Globemaster Production Restart<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/boeing-yc-14-mcdonnell-douglas-yc-15-amst\/\">The STOL Contest With No Winner That Built the C-17<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/the-c-5-galaxy-37-ready-and-flying-until-2050\/\">The C-5 Galaxy: 37% Ready, and Flying Until 2050<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Air Mobility Command boss Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley says a C-17 production restart is on the table inside a formal Analysis of Alternatives. The line closed in 2015. Nobody is sure the tooling still exists.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":22963045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[664,670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22963488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-aviation","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>USAF Weighs Restarting C-17 Production | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Air Mobility Command says a C-17 production restart is on the table in a formal Analysis of Alternatives. 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