For sale: a mammoth four-engine plane that can haul 60-ton tanks, troops and medical gear across continents and still land on short, shoddy runways.

Price: about $240 million; volume discounts are available. If interested, please contact Boeing Co. at your nearest air show.

That’s the sales pitch that Boeing officials have been making worldwide recently, in hopes of keeping its sprawling C-17 assembly line in Long Beach from closing in two years. The plant, adjacent to Long Beach Airport, employs about 5,000 people and is one of the last remaining aircraft plants in Southern California.

With slowing orders from the Pentagon, the Chicago-based aerospace giant said last week that it would cut the C-17 production rate by a third, from 15 aircraft a year to 10, so it could extend the life of the line by several months. It would also buy time for the company to sell more planes to foreign buyers, Boeing said.

• Read the full Los Angeles Times story.