The U.S. Air Power is at present wanting towards a single next-generation airlifter to supplant each the C-17A Globemaster III and the C-5M Galaxy, beginning within the mid-2040s. The service continues to be within the early levels of formulating its necessities for a Subsequent Era Airlift (NGAL) platform, however has already put emphasis on higher pace and operational flexibility, in addition to the flexibility to higher defend in opposition to rising threats when on the bottom and within the air.
Air Power Gen. John Lamontagne, head of Air Mobility Command (AMC), mentioned the present state of NGAL with TWZ and others at a roundtable on the sidelines of the Air & Area Forces Affiliation’s 2025 Air, Area, and Cyber Convention yesterday. As of the beginning of Fiscal 12 months 2025, the Air Power had 222 C-17As and 52 C-5Ms in its stock.
A US Air Power C-17A Globemaster III. USMC
The C-17A, which first entered service in 1995, has a high pace of round 520 miles per hour and a most payload capability of some 82 tons, in keeping with the official Air Power reality sheet. The a lot bigger C-5Ms, which began their careers within the Eighties as C-5Bs and Cs, can carry as much as 135 tons of cargo and/or personnel at as much as across the identical pace. Each varieties do sometimes cruise a slower speeds. They can be refueled in flight to increase their vary. Neither the C-17 nor the C-5 are at present in manufacturing.
A C-5M Galaxy. USAF
Because it stands now, NGAL is “principally a two-for-one to interchange each the C-17 and the C-5,” Lamontagne stated. “Driving that in direction of the mid-2040 timeline.”
“Once I say two-for-one, we’re most likely going to obtain one plane,” he additional clarified afterward within the roundtable. “We received’t get a C-5 substitute and a C-17 substitute. There’ll be one airplane that does strategic airlift.”
In the case of what the Air Power needs in that plane, the service has been working via what it calls a capabilities-based evaluation (CBA) for NGAL.
“That capabilities-based evaluation takes a have a look at what sort of protection methods do we want? What sort of tactical agility do we want? What sort of servicing do we want?” Lamontagne defined. “So we’ll see what that appears like.”
USAF personnel load cargo onto a C-17 throughout coaching. USAF Tech. Sgt. Joel McCullough
“So far as what we wish within the subsequent[-generation airlift] platform, we wish agility, we wish pace, we wish to have the ability to function in the next menace setting,” he added. This consists of “countermeasures which can be efficient in opposition to these threats which can be coming from more and more longer ranges.”
The Air Power has beforehand warned of the probability of a menace setting that features anti-air missiles with ranges as much as 1,000 miles by 2050. China, America’s present chief world competitor, has been significantly lively in creating and fielding new air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles with ever higher attain. Russia has additionally been pursuing new capabilities on this regard.
Lamontagne additionally highlighted the rising threats American airlifters face on the bottom, that are magnified by the point it could take to load and unload payloads, in addition to refuel. Final yr, AMC notably put out a name for choices for future defensive methods that could possibly be built-in immediately into its cargo planes, together with its aerial refueling tanker fleets, to assist defend them from ever-expanding drone threats, as you’ll be able to learn extra about right here.
“We’re clearly at lots of danger on the bottom, sitting on the bottom someplace,” the top of AMC defined. “So, [we] don’t need to sit on the bottom for 3 hours. If we might refuel in so much sooner timeline than that, not that it takes three hours to refuel a C-17, however, , three minutes can be higher than half-hour.”
A C-17 is refueled on the bottom. USAF Senior Airman Shelimar Rivera-Rosado
“Proper now, we all know what we have to do and the place we have to go,” he added, referring to the event of recent defensive capabilities for plane throughout the command extra typically. “We’ve bought to develop the defensive methods, proceed to develop them, and we’re doing lots of exams and experimentation on that now, in order that we are able to spiral it [out].”
Lamontagne additionally famous that the sorts of capabilities, normally phrases, the Air Power needs for NGAL don’t essentially “combine actually, rather well, and, so, what you prioritize and what you cherish will assist outline the place we go” when it comes to a future design.
The potential for NGAL to be a ‘system of methods’ fairly than a single platform has been raised prior to now. There are instant questions on how a single plane would be capable of supplant each the C-17 and the C-5, that are very completely different plane in kind and performance.
As an example, the C-17, regardless of its dimension, provides important quick and tough subject efficiency, permitting it to ship heavy payloads even within the absence of improved runways. The plane was designed to have the ability to herald combat-ready forces, together with tanks and different heavy armor, to touchdown zones at or at the very least close to the entrance traces, in addition to drop paratroopers into those self same areas.
The C-5 can load cargo and personnel from the nostril and tail ends, and achieve this concurrently. Along with simply having the ability to carry bigger payload volumes total in comparison with the C-17, the Galaxy additionally provides a singular functionality inside the U.S. navy for shifting outsized and weird payloads by air, together with satellites and different space-related objects.
Lamontagne acknowledged that NGAL might nonetheless probably embrace a number of completely different designs, but in addition highlighted considerations about whether or not the Air Power “can afford, grandkids, youngsters, all of them.” The power of the Air Power to pay for a number of new fleets of next-generation plane amid a slew of different modernization priorities, particularly within the nuclear deterrence realm, has been repeatedly known as into query lately, together with by the service’s personal high management.
NGAL can also be at present restricted to assembly next-generation strategic airlift necessities. Lamontagne stated yesterday that the Air Power has at the very least two different traces of effort, NGAL-Little and Subsequent Era Intra-theater Airlift (NGIA), geared towards fulfilling future tactical airlift wants. C-130 variants are the service’s present tactical airlift platforms. Strategic airlift is usually described as being intertheater in nature, whereas tactical airlift is primarily targeted on intratheater missions.
A US Air Power C-130 within the foreground and one of many service’s C-17s behind. USAF
Above all else, Lamontagne harassed the significance of the Air Power having the ability to ultimately retire the C-17 and the C-5 on its phrases.
“The C-17 and C-5 … served us effectively for many years, however they’re not going to fly eternally, and so we’d prefer to recapitalize these on our timeline,” he stated. “If we have a look at what occurred with the [C-]141 [Starlifter] after the Gulf Battle, it principally instructed us when it was achieved. We’d prefer to have a plan in place so when the service life begins to erode on the C-17, whether or not it’s wings, engines, or extra, we’ve bought a contest already going.”
One of many final C-141B Starlifters in active-duty US Air Power service heads into retirement in 2004. USAF
It is very important do not forget that NGAL is hardly the primary time the Air Power has explored ideas for superior cargo plane, together with stealthy designs and ones with vertical takeoff and touchdown functionality. A lot of this work through the years has been tied in with plans for next-generation tankers, one thing the Air Power is once more pursuing now via its separate Subsequent Era Air Refueling System (NGAS) effort. TWZ has been calling consideration to the U.S. navy’s ever-growing want for extra survivable tankers and airlifters for years now.
A wind tunnel mannequin of a design idea for a sophisticated tanker and/or cargo plane that the Air Power explored as a part of a venture known as Pace Agile within the late 2000s and early 2010s. USAF
Throughout yesterday’s roundtable, Lamontagne cited AMC’s position within the deployment of air and ground-based air protection property to places throughout the Center East on a number of events final yr and earlier this yr as examples of the vital significance of strategic airlift and the necessity to modernize these capabilities. These actions helped bolster the flexibility of U.S. forces to defend American pursuits within the area, in addition to Israel. They had been key to setting the stage for the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on nuclear services in Iran in June. The C-17 fleet has already been underneath specific pressure for some years now as a consequence of heavy demand because of a succession of main crises.
“Strategic elevate may be very vital, as , and that’s the method that we at TRANSCOM often provoke our most responsive pressure. We rely closely on each the C-5 and the C-17, each of that are getting old, each are very succesful,” Air Power Gen. Randall Reed, head of that command, additionally instructed TWZ and others at a separate roundtable yesterday on the Air, Area, and Cyber Convention. “I’m grateful to the Air Power for taking a look at any and all doable methods to spend money on weapon system sustainment to ensure that we are able to proceed to fly these for the close to and the midterm.”
“It is usually vital that we begin taking a look at what comes subsequent. The setting is altering. We’ll want plane which have capabilities that we don’t have as we speak, particularly to ensure that we’re related,” Reed added. “And the Air Power is working actual onerous to offer that for us.”
A quartet of C-17s. USAF
Till NGAL is prepared, in no matter kind it in the end takes, the C-17, particularly, will proceed to be the Air Power’s strategic airlift workhorse. AMC is already within the strategy of including new beyond-line-of-sight communications capabilities to these plane. As famous, the command has already been exploring new defensive capabilities for all of its fleets, together with defending them with drone wingmen, as effectively.
“Proper now, I don’t assume we’ll have to earlier than the 2040s, however we’d have to after that,” Gen. Lamontagne stated in response to a query about probably re-engining the C-17 fleet. “If we do a service life extension or one thing alongside these traces, we will definitely have to do one thing alongside these traces.”
“Proper now, I believe the C-17s we’ve, , working with the producer, they’re engaged on bettering, , each the effectivity and the efficiency, so getting just a little extra gasoline environment friendly with those that we’ve, and just a little extra time on the wing with those that we’ve,” he added. “Proper now, I believe we’re in a reasonably good place.”
Earlier this yr, Boeing stated it was within the very early stage of talks with at the very least one potential buyer about restarting manufacturing of the C-17, or beginning to produce a brand new spinoff of that design. The C-17 line was shuttered in 2015.
“There aren’t any present plans to restart the C-17,” Lamontagne stated, however acknowledged it’s one thing that has been mentioned. “I believe one step at a time, capabilities-based evaluation, evaluation of options, competitors.”
“[I’m] hoping, within the close to time period, subsequent couple of years, few years, I’d say, [to] have one other evaluation of options, this time on the subsequent technology airlifter, as an alternative of the subsequent technology air refueling system,” he additionally stated in the course of the roundtable.
General, the Air Power continues to be within the early levels of the NGAL effort, however a path ahead to a successor to the C-17 and the C-5 is now beginning to take higher form.
Contact the creator: joe@twz.com
