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C-17 Globemaster

The Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH has issued Boeing subsidiary McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, CA received a $22 million time and material contract modification to the C-17 Globemaster III sustainment partnership. A separate $16.4 million contract adds combat lighting to 28 aircraft.

What is the C-17 Globemaster III sustainment partnership, you ask?

As an earlier DID article has noted, it’s a long term, performance-based, public-private partnership between Boeing and the Air Force, which places all performance risk on the contractor to sustain the C-17 fleet at agreed-upon and continuously raised benchmarked levels. This effort also supports C-17 foreign military sales to the United Kingdom.

The Material Improvement Project (MIP) program was established by P00037, and is based on estimated performance requirements for one-off engineering and retrofit requirements. This estimated annual program does not identify specific projects to be performed, just estimated aggregate requirements. The release noted that “the [$22 million] modification will increase funding for FY 2004 and FY 2005 material improvement projects for the US Air Force,” so it would appear that recent estimates may have been a bit low. Work will be complete by December 2007 (FA8614-04-C-2004/P00077).

Another $16.4 million fixed price with economic price adjustment contract modification changes the C-17 production contract to incorporate combat lighting capability into 28 aircraft (Lots 17 through 19). This work will be complete in July 2008 (F33657-02-C-2001/P00041).

For fuller coverage of the program and its contracts over the last several years, see DID’s FOCUS Article covering the C-17 Global Sustainment Partnership.