If Congress has its way, the Pentagon will have to return to the tried-and-true method it used for more than 45 years to measure airlift capability—the million ton miles per day metric. The Joint Staff eschewed the MTM/D metric when it prepared last year’s Mobility Capabilities Study, saying it had proved inaccurate against actual needs and there were better models to come. The MCS 2005, you may recall, rebutted the 2001 Mobility Requirements Study, which found an airlift shortfall. And, that was before 9/11 and subsequent heightened mobility needs. The 2007 defense authorization bill now directs the Pentagon to include in its 2006 MCS a determination of “intratheater and intertheater airlift mobility requirements (stated in terms of million ton miles per day)” for scenarios modeled in both the MCS 2005 and MCS 2006. Congress also wants a delineation of low, medium, and high levels of risk covering a variety of conditions. It expects the mobility requirements report by Feb. 1, 2007.
AETC Readies for 1st Production T-7 Trainer
Dec. 5, 2025
Air Education & Training Command is poised to receive its first T-7A Red Hawk in the coming days, the start of a process that will end with pilots finally getting trained in the eagerly anticipated jet.
