Boeing C-17 Globemaster: A $5.8bn question mark
19 Oct 2010
Bangalore: Even as respective embassies and consulates in India and the United States gear up to provide the necessary PR overhang that will attend US president Barack Obama's visit to India next month, reports have also begun to circulate that the mammoth $5.8-billion deal for 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster heavy lift transport aircraft may well be announced in advance to allow for a formal signing event later when the US presidential entourage eventually arrives in Delhi.
The Boeing C-17 Globemaster is a desperately floundering programme in the United Sates, which is limping along on the last few orders that have been extended by the United States Air Force.
The USAF has for long been trying to kill the programme and it is only a determined rear-guard action by the company in collusion with politicians of all hues that has allowed the programme to survive this long.
US defence secretary Robert Gates has already asked the president to veto any defence bill that includes further purchase of this aircraft.
What has puzzled observers is the fact that on current prices the order for the ten C-17 aircraft should have cost the Indian Air Force close to $2.2 billion but the deal is being talked about as being $5.8 billion in size. The discrepancy is sought to be explained away as related to excess expenditure on additional equipment and support infrastructure.
There are two problems with the whole programme which nobody is making any effort to explain.