The C-17 is the newest design large transport aircraft in the Air Force's inventory.
It has exceptional short-field take-off and landing capabilities. One world-record it holds
is for taking off in less than 1400 feet with 44,000 lbs payload, climbing to altitude, and
finally landing in less than 1400 feet. The C-17 can backup a 2% grade under it's own power!
At Oshkosh, the C-17 demonstrated it's capabilities including short take-off and landing during one of the airshows. The crew positioned the plane on the runway just short distance down from the West-ramp taxiway; the on-board computer calculated that the plane would become airborne just at the taxiway. The wheels left the ground almost perfectly as they passed the taxi-way center-line. After an extremely short landing roll-out, the crew kept the thrust reversers on and backed the plane down the runway.
For more information on this type of plane, here are a few references:
These photographs were taken at the 1997 EAA Oshkosh Fly-In.
A note about the photographs: if a thumbnail picture is a link, clicking on it will load an image approximately 500x300 pixels large (~60Kb). Under some thumbnails is the word "huge". Clicking there will load the original scanned image of about 800x500 pixels at JPEG 75% quality (~200Kb).
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| I'm pretty much an afficiando of wings and especially flaps (if you don't believe me, just check out the photos I took of the a 727...). The C-17 has some of the most incredible flaps and slats I've ever seen up close. The flaps are huge,and are externally "blown" with air ducted from the engines. | ||
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