RAF Likes the C-17

Britain’s Royal Air Force will get a fifth C-17 airlifter and will purchase the first four that it has been leasing from Boeing. The British under-secretary of state for defense, Tom Watson, announced the news last week, according to Government News Network (UK). The lease arrangement gave the RAF the original four until 2008, at which time Britain could either buy or extend the lease. Buying the new airlifters, said Watson, “will give the RAF a guaranteed long-term capacity.”