The first C-17 cargo aircraft assigned to Travis AFB, Calif., touched down at the base on Tuesday. Dubbed Spirit of Solano, it’s the first of 13 new C-17s destined for Travis and will be on its first mission—flying to Europe—this week. Travis now flies three of the service’s mobility mainstays—C-5 and C-17 airlifters and KC-10 aerial refuelers. A crowd of some 2,000 included Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), who has advocated increasing the Air Force’s C-17 purchase, and who told attendees, “The C-17 has proven itself the world’s most versatile, reliable, and capable aircraft.” She added that confronting the “ever-changing face of global threats and calamities” has “stretched too far” the nation’s airlift capabilities.
In the face of Chinese war plans to disrupt U.S. command-and-control networks in the event of a conflict, the Air Force needs to focus less on its “connect everything” efforts and prepare its combat aviators to fight without a constant connection to higher-ups, according to a new report from AFA’s…
