Boeing stopped production of the C-17 in 2015, but there is currently no plan to replace the plane.Īs of right now, there's no plans to decommission C-17. There are 274 C-17s across the globe, with 157 in the active use by the US Air Force. Narrator: Today, the C-17 is flown by countries around the world, like the United Kingdom, Australia, and India. If the Navy, the Marines, or the Army needs to go from one location to another, and they deem that a C-17 is what they would want to utilize, then they will contact us to move from one location to another. We don't only conduct operations for the Air Force. By gradually changing the angle of the wing flaps, they can slow down the speed of the aircraft and gradually lower the plane to the ground. Pilots tilt the nose of the plane forward and add power to the engine, redirecting the thrust energy downwards. In addition to the winglets, the C-17 uses the same thrust redirection in landings as it does in takeoffs. Narrator: Winglets make landing on short runways possible by preventing the airflow under the wing from rolling to the top, which helps reduce drag. Kelsey: And those help focus more aerodynamic. Narrator: The final critical feature of the giant C-17 are actually these small winglets. So now you're generating more lift on one wing versus the other, and that forces the wing to raise, which is how you get a turn. Kelsey: So there's actually ailerons on the wing, so one will rise while the other one stays down. Pilots have to manage 22 different control surfaces to operate the C-17, using them to create more lift or to turn the massive vehicle. This design creates nearly twice as much lift as that of a conventional jet airliner. During takeoff, the C-17 redirects that thrust downwards from its high-mounted wings to flow through these long external flaps, generating lift, or upward force. It starts with four Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, each capable of producing around 40,000 pounds of thrust - power typically used to move the plane forward. ![]() ![]() Narrator: Getting a plane as big and heavy as a fully-loaded C-17 to take off requires a lot of power.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |