Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

The C-17's genius is contradiction: it hauls strategic loads — a 60-tonne main battle tank — yet lands on 1,000-metre dirt strips, backs up under its own reverse thrust, and turns around on a runway the width of a road. Nothing else combines intercontinental reach with rough-field manners at this scale.

It became the machine the world reaches for when everything goes wrong: earthquake relief, evacuation airlifts, aid drops. The 2021 Kabul evacuation made one C-17 famous for carrying 823 people in a single lift.

279 were built before the line closed in 2015 — a decision the US has publicly regretted since, as no replacement exists. Nine air forces fly it, and every operator's answer to 'what would you buy more of?' is the same.