Tale of the Tape on Air Mobility: USAF air mobility forces have been working overtime ever since the war on terror began in 2001. In recent Congressional testimony, Gen. Norton Schwartz, commander of USTRANSCOM, quantified the magnitude of the 2005 effort. Airlift support of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq: 1,188,084 passengers and 457,670 tons of cargo moved. Air tanker ops: 508,000 tons of fuel offloaded. Force rotation of units to and from Iraq and Afghanistan: 250,000 passengers and 11,000 tons of cargo in the first three months of 2005.
The KC-Z4, a blended wing body tanker concept being developed by startup JetZero, could fuel larger groups of aircraft at longer range to hold more targets at risk, company officials say.