Yes there were lease restrictions but the leases on the original 4 C-17 has run out and they now have been purchased. It does not seem to have changed the manner in which the aircraft are operated. But this is in no way unique to the RAF.
All of the unpaved runways that the C-17 operators fly into were either built from scratch or upgraded by engineers specifically for C-17 operations. Regular unpaved runways, no matter how long, are never 'just flown into'. I know of only two exceptions: Camp Rhino operations early in the Afghan war (2001) where, for a few days, C-17s landed at night in a 6900+ foot unpaved runway, and much more recently, the Canadians landed their C-17 at CFS Alert, a 5,500 foot gravel runway in the Arctic.
In the case of Camp Rhino, an engineering team had to be flown in with heavy equipment after just 8 C-17 landings, to fix the deep ruts in the runway. In Alert, the aircraft landed with a reduced payload of about 45 tonnes, and the runway resisted thanks to the permafrost there, where the ground is solid as concrete most of the year. Otherwise, 99,9% of C-17 operations are from long, hard-surfaced runways.
Last edited by Minorite invisible; 5th Jan 2011 at 21:27.