Officials and visitors at Dover AFB, Del., broke ground on a new C-17 training facility and celebrated the expected arrival of the aircraft. Dover is getting a new $5.6 million state-of-the-art training facility that will feature a new full-motion C-17 aircraft simulator from Boeing’s St. Louis factory, said Capt. Scott McAuliffe, Air Force project manager for the facility. The simulator will help ease the transition from C-5s to C-17s. The Air Force plans to send nine of Dover’s 27 C-5s to other bases, making way for 13 new C-17s slated for arrival in summer 2007.
A-10 Thunderbolt II attack planes in the Middle East are flying with fresh modifications as the Air Force looks to make the plane more versatile amid America’s ongoing blockade of Iranian ports and a tenuous ceasefire in the U.S. air war against Iran.