Gen. Paul Hester, head of Pacific Air Forces, formally accepted the command’s first C-17 airlifter, which will be assigned to Hickam AFB, Hawaii. The new transport is named Spirit of Hawai’i-Ke Aloha.” He told a crowd at Boeing’s Long Beach (Calif.) production facility on Feb. 7 that the new airlifter provides “the flexibility and dexterity to excel across the entire spectrum of military operations—it can provide humanitarian aid one day and support full-scale combat the next.” Boeing plans to deliver another seven C-17s to Hickam, where they will be flown and maintained by the active duty 15th Airlift Wing and Air National Guard 154th Wing.
The B-21 Raider stealth bomber was recently flown, for the first time, by an operational pilot as part of its flight test process, the Air Force said June 11. And a top Pentagon official said the move to bring operational testing into the B-21 process earlier than normal shows the…