The 15th Airlift Wing, Hickham AFB, Hawaii, took delivery on July 18 of its eighth and final C-17 advanced airlifter, completing a remarkable transformation of the unit. The new C-17 was named “Spirit of Kamehameha-Imua,” after one of Hawaii’s most revered historical figures. The wing had been a support unit until early this year, when it began to receive the alirfters. It is not a fully operational airlift unit. The aircraft are expected to play a major role in force mobility throughout the Pacific.
The future U.S. bomber force could provide a way for the Pentagon to simultaneously deter conflict with peer adversaries in two geographically disparate theaters, said Mark Gunzinger, the director of future concepts and capability assessments at AFA's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, during a March 21 event. But doing so…