NATO Inks Deal to Buy 3 C-17s

[unhappycamper]

NATO Inks Deal to Buy 3 C-17s
October 02, 2008
Associated Press

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Twelve nations finalized an agreement at NATO on Wednesday to jointly buy and run three C-17 Globemaster transport planes to fill an airlift shortfall that has dogged international missions from Afghanistan to Sudan.

Under the agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, they will jointly acquire the giant Boeing planes and place them at new operating base in Hungary early next year under the command of a U.S. officer, said NATO spokesman James Appathurai.

NATO has long suffered a shortage of large transport planes, and the deal reached by 10 of its members and two non-NATO members - Sweden and Finland - is aimed at addressing that problem.

Appathurai said the arrival of the planes will provide an "important new capability" for the alliance and is a model for how smaller nations can pool resources to acquire equipment beyond the reach of their individual defense budgets.

The planes will be based at Papa air base in Hungary with multinational crews. They will be available for NATO, European Union and United Nations missions.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/nato-inks-deal-to-buy-3-c17s.html?col=1186032310810



uhc comment: At $218,000,000 (in 2007 dollars) a pop, Boeing gets another $654,000,000 -->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-17_Globemaster_III