C-17 Globemaster III
ICAO C17Boeing's four-engine strategic airlifter, and one of the most consistently visible military aircraft on ADS-B. Track every C-17 transmitting right now.
Flying right now
Live · 30s- RCH551 37,000 ft 97-0045 🇺🇸 United States
- KAF3205 34,000 ft KAF343 🇰🇼 Kuwait
- RCH466 33,675 ft 99-0168 🇺🇸 United States
- RCH545 33,000 ft 09-9207 🇺🇸 United States
- RCH450 30,000 ft 00-0184 🇺🇸 United States
- RCH303 29,000 ft 00-0185 🇺🇸 United States
- RCH213 17,825 ft 00-0180 🇺🇸 United States
- CADDO88 7,475 ft 99-0170 🇺🇸 United States
- BALTO82 2,550 ft 98-0051 🇺🇸 United States
- BALTO81 2,475 ft 93-0599 🇺🇸 United States
- BCAT01 2,150 ft ZZ171 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- GRZLY77 100 ft 06-6159 🇺🇸 United States
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- Boeing
- Role
- Strategic and tactical airlift
- Class
- L4J — Landplane, 4 jet engines
- Crew
- 3 — two pilots and a loadmaster
- First flight
- 15 September 1991
- In service
- 1995
Operators airborne
About the C-17 Globemaster III
The C-17 is the aircraft most people are actually looking at when they find a military tracking site. It carries outsized cargo between continents but can also put that cargo onto a short unpaved strip, which is the combination that made it replace both the C-141 and a good deal of what the C-5 used to do.
It shows up well on ADS-B because Air Mobility Command flies it through civil airspace on scheduled logistics runs, transmitting like any airliner. A C-17 crossing the Atlantic under a RCH callsign is routine traffic, not an event — which is exactly why the type is a good place to start watching.
Production ended in 2015 after 279 airframes. The fleet is essentially fixed now, so the tails you see today are the tails you will keep seeing.
Callsign prefixes
- RCH
- Reach — US Air Mobility Command, the great majority of C-17 traffic
- RRR
- Ascot — Royal Air Force
- ASY
- Aussie — Royal Australian Air Force
- CFC
- Canforce — Royal Canadian Air Force
How to recognise it
- —High-mounted swept wing with prominent winglets, four turbofans on underwing pylons.
- —T-tail, and a fuselage noticeably short and deep for the wingspan — it looks stubby next to a C-5.
- —Typically cruises in the high twenties to mid thirties, slower than a jet airliner over the same route.
Common questions
+ How many C-17s are flying right now?
The live count at the top of this page is read from the ADS-B feed every thirty seconds. It counts only aircraft currently transmitting a position, so it is a floor rather than a total — an airframe with its transponder off does not appear.
+ What does the callsign RCH mean?
RCH is spoken as "Reach" and belongs to US Air Mobility Command. It is used across the airlift fleet — C-17, C-5 and C-130 all fly Reach missions — so a RCH callsign tells you the mission, not the aircraft type.
+ Why do some C-17s disappear mid-flight?
Coverage, usually. ADS-B is received by volunteer ground stations, and there are stretches of ocean and desert with none in range. The aircraft reappears when it flies back into coverage.
+ How do you tell a C-17 from a C-5?
Size and nose. The C-5 is far larger, has a visor nose that hinges upward, and carries its four engines further outboard. Both have T-tails and high wings, which is what makes them easy to confuse in a photograph with nothing for scale.