Boeing C-17 Globemaster III
The strategic lift that reaches Ladakh.
About the III
The McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) during the 1980s and the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas. The C-17 carries forward the name of two previous piston-engined military cargo aircraft, the Douglas C-74 Globemaster and the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II. The C-17 is based upon the YC-15, a smaller prototype airlifter designed during the 1970s.
Service history
India ordered ten C-17s in 2011 and an eleventh in 2019, making it the largest operator outside the US Air Force. The type transformed Indian airlift: it can put 70 tonnes into a short, unpaved strip, and flew the bulk of the sustainment into eastern Ladakh during the 2020 standoff as well as evacuation flights from Kabul in 2021 and Sudan in 2023.
Combat edge
70-tonne payload into semi-prepared strips
Largest operator outside the US Air Force
Sustained the 2020 Ladakh deployment
Flew evacuations from Kabul and Sudan
Operations
Named operations this catalogue records Boeing C-17 Globemaster III as having taken part in.
- April – May 2023EvacuationOperation KaveriOut of Khartoum by road to Port Sudan, then by sea and air to Jeddah.
- February – March 2022EvacuationOperation GangaNearly 23,000 people — most of them students — brought out of a war through four borders.
- August 2021EvacuationOperation Devi ShaktiC-17s into Kabul as the airport fell, flying out 670 people in days.
- April 2015EvacuationOperation RaahatOver 4,600 people lifted out of a war zone — from 41 countries, not only India.
- April – May 2015Humanitarian reliefOperation MaitriFirst responders on the ground within six hours of the Gorkha earthquake.
Related platforms
Dornier 228
Twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA.
Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules
Medium-size American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft.
Ilyushin Il-76
Multi-purpose, fixed-wing, four-engine turbofan strategic airlifter designed by the Soviet Union's.