Boeing on Friday directed its C-17 program suppliers to “stop work on uncommitted airplanes.” The company said that it could no longer “continue carrying the program,” after spending its own money for more than a year to sustain the production line while the Pentagon attempted to sort out its mobility requirements. Despite late interest from NATO for eight of the new airlifters, Boeing says that international orders and commitments and the three additional C-17s included in the yet-to-be finalized 2007 DOD budget “are not enough to sustain continued production beyond mid-2009.”
The top Air Force commander on on the Japanese island of Okinawa has clamped down alcohol and issued a curfew for junior enlisted Airmen and Guardians at Kadena Air Base for the next month. The order came roughly two weeks after a U.S. Marine was arrested for allegedly robbing and…