First CC-177 flight to Kandahar
Our first Globemaster III is certainly getting to work fast:
In the pitch darkness of night, the Canadian military's new C-17 transport plane touched down softly at Kandahar Military Airport on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan.
The pilots landed the giant carrier with its lights extinguished, guided solely by night-vision goggles.
"We took a tactical approach with the night-vision goggles, with the airplane lights turned off, with the engines idling,'' said Maj. Jean Maisonneuve, chief check pilot at 429 Transport Squadron, 8 Wing, in Trenton, Ont.
"In a way, we're sort of pioneers.''
The gigantic, 200-tonne bird of steel is expected to have an effect on Canadian troop confidence as they continue to battle with Taliban insurgents, Maisonneuve said in a short interview shortly after landing.
"This plane will have a positive impact on the morale of the troops. Speaking with my colleagues, I can tell you that everyone is happy to know that we have modern tools at our disposal and a better (transport) capacity than before,'' he said...
Last week, the C-17 made its inaugural flight by transporting aid equipment to Jamaica to help in the aftermath of hurricane Dean.
But on Wednesday, the giant grey-blue plane's delivery to Kandahar included 35,000 kilograms of equipment destined for Canadian troops. It was scheduled to depart for Canada just a few hours after landing.
The second C-17 purchased by Canada is slated to arrive in November 2007 and two others in the spring of 2008.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:07 a.m.
5 Comments:
There's a bit of a "WTF?" moment in that linked CTV article, too.
The C-17s can also travel twice as fast, reaching up to 80 per cent of the speed of sound, and have a cruising speed of 1,000 kilometres an hour.
Last time I checked, the C-17 did economy cruise at somewhere between .68 and .75 mach (410-450 KIAS). Even if you made .80 at max, that's just 480 kts indicated (or 889 kph)... 1,000 kph would be 540 KIAS and mach .90. That's way beyond the cruise speed of the CC-177, more appropriate to a high-performance bizjet.
check out the article for the load capacity . . . . a "little more" than I realized :)
they fixed it . . originally said it could haul 77,000 tonnes.
Now says kilos.
"In its giant belly, the plane can carry 77,000 tonnes of cargo, including vehicles, and can transport up to 100 soldiers. "
Heh, I was just going to say 164,900lbs (77,000kg) sounds right for a C-17ER... I didn't see a discrepancy there, thanks for the clarification.
actual max payload according to Boeing is 77519 kg
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