The Tennessee Air National Guard base in Memphis would get eight C-17 aircraft in fiscal year 2013 under a U.S. Air Force plan to changes its structure.

The proposal would save $8.7 billion in fiscal year 2013 and will mean a smaller Air Force through fiscal year 2017. The force reductions will affect more than 60 Air Force installations

The C-17 cargo aircraft delivers troops and cargo to operating bases and forward bases. It is also versatile enough to do tactical airlifts and airdrops.

The C-17s to come to Memphis would replace C-5As, which are all being retired through fiscal year 2016.

The C-5As are also cargo aircraft that can carry troops. It has a greater capacity than any other aircraft known as airlifters. It is the largest airlifter used by the U.S. Air Force.

The Air Force white paper says the C-5As were selected for retirement because of “additional savings in training and logistics support that could not have been achieved by spreading retirements over multiple aircraft types.”

“Where possible, we attempted to retire all aircraft of a specific type, allowing us to also divest the unique training and logistic support structure for that aircraft,” said Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz, in a written statement. “When that was not possible, we worked to retire the oldest aircraft first and redistributed aircraft into effective and economical units, eliminating other units when that was most efficient.”

The Air National Guard base in Nashville would lose six WC-130 aircraft to a base in Puerto Rico. But the intelligence squadron at Nashville would be enlarged and a new group would be created in Nashville to fly unmanned aircraft.

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander termed the white paper “an encouraging recognition that the Tennessee Air National Guard bases in Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville are crucial to our country’s readiness even as the strategies of the Air Force change.”