February 2015 29 airlifters that is undergoing routine maintenance in Hangar 3 at McChord. Hangar 3 also is used on occasion to get C-17s ready to send to the Boeing San Antonio site in Texas, which performs depot-level maintenance for both U.S. and international C-17 customers. The McChord hangar has seen its share of aircraft over the years, including Boeing’s B-17 bomber during World War II. It is one of four hangars built in 1939 shortly after 900 acres (365 hectares) was deeded to the War Department for a military base that would be named McChord Field. Later, it became McChord Air Force Base. In early 2010, the base was consolidated with its next-door neighbor, the U.S. Army’s Fort Lewis, and both designated Joint Base Lewis-McChord. McChord Field, as it is still called, received its first C-17 in July 1999 and would eventually get 52, most of them delivered directly from Boeing’s Long Beach factory. That only a half-dozen or so were on the flight line during a recent two-day visit underscores just how often C-17s are away, performing Photos: (Opposite page, clockwise from top) Passengers depart a C-17 in October 2014 after landing at McMurdo Station, Antarctica; a C-17 is directed after landing at Fort Polk, La., during a field training exercise last year; a C-17 from Joint Base Charleston, S.C., releases flares over the Atlantic Ocean during a 2006 training mission. U.S. Air Force (This page, from left) More than 600 people sit on board a C-17 before an evacuation to Manila after Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in November 2013; a C-17 out of Joint Base Charleston airdrops approximately 14,000 bottles of water and food in January 2010 to the outlying area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after an earthquake. U.S. Air Force
Frontiers February 2015 Issue
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