At Nick's suggestion, posting this draft revision for the "Commercial Interest" section.

What I need everyone to understand is that the BC-17 program is NOT dead. It is NOT Boeing's decision as to whether it continues. It is NOT the FAA's decision as to whether it continues. It is NOT even the USAF's (the used aircraft aspect of the initiative takes Boeing out of the influence loop save for maintaining of the aircraft functioning in a dual Commercial/Military role) decision. That power rests with Congress and the SECDEF, and even that's not absolute owing to the national and economic security issues involved in C-17 line continuance and the task of the BC-17 to be the core of a US/NATO controlled heavy and outsized industry subset of Air cargo. The Russians and Ukrainians control this, as you know with their AN-124s. requiring the US military to compensate for airlift shortfalls through the use of the Ruslans on a fairly regular basis.

If any of our august colleagues in the Wiki-sphere are going to weigh with comments, I strongly suggest that you review the Roche paper developed by Ronis and Stokes at the SECAF's request in 2001. It would also work well to review the linked presentation to the SpeedNews Aerospace and Defense Conference presentation from 2007. This way, we're all on the same page.

One last thing: Consider the data contained within these documents as all but absolute in their accuracy  really... ASIMOV51 (talk)