It's official: C-17 and F/A-18 gets additional funding

On Monday, December 21st, President Barack Obama signed into law the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations bill (the House had provided its approval on December 17th, while the Senate had passed it with a vote of 88-10 on Saturday, December 19th).  The bill includes funding for an additional 10 C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft and 18 F/A-18 fighter aircraft, as well as provisions for the Pentagon to enter into a multi-year procurement program for future F/A-18 purchases.  Funding was also provided for some of Boeing's other defense programs, including the CH-47 Chinook, V-22 Osprey, EA-18G Growler, and P-8A Poseidon.  This news is especially important for the C-17 program, which faced an inevitable closure of the production line unless the Pentagon stepped in to purchase more than the 205 C-17's it has on order.  Below is a link for a C-17 advocacy web site, which urges people to write to their members of Congress as well as to sign a petition to help save the C-17 line.  Looks like their efforts paid off, and the C-17 lives again!

C-17 for America Website

Photo Credit / CC BY-SA 2.0

Photo Credit / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0