A C-130 transport deployed to the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing in Southwest Asia surpassed 30,000 flight hours during a Nov. 23 mission. The aircraft, with serial number 63-7883, landed with zero defects and 30,002.5 hours on it after its historic flight. “When flying aircraft every day which are older than most of the crew members, it’s a real pleasure to fly such a clean and well-maintained example,” said MSgt. Steve Vaughn, 737th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron flight engineer. Flying for 30,000 hours equates to circling the Earth more than 350 times when traveling at 250 knots and hauling hundreds of thousands of passengers and millions of pounds of cargo. (386th AEW report by MSgt. Ben Miller)
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.
