Some 250 USAF aerial porters—about 100 are reservists—at Incirlik AB, Turkey, move an average of 60,000 pounds of cargo every day. Since June 1, say officials, the Total Force team has shifted about 87,000 tons into the Southwest Asia theater. The pace of operations at the base in Turkey picked up “significantly” when Rhein-Mein AB, Germany, shut down, says 1st Lt. Jim Burnham, 728th Air Mobility Squadron. He equates the effort since June to the “equivalent weight of 20,000 cars.”
The Air Force is on track to reach its annual goal of graduating 1,500 new pilots that had proved elusive to this point, one year after the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its undergraduate pilot training program, Air Education and Training Command said Sept. 14.
