Instant Mobility Force

In a first-of-its-scale Total Force exercise last month at Travis AFB, Calif., airmen of the 60th Air Mobility Wing and Air Force Reserve Command’s 349th AMW successfully conducted a mass launch of 11 aircraft within 15 minutes. Dubbed Operation Team Effort, the Dec. 21 drill saw six KC-10 tankers, one C-5B, and two C-17 transports, and a Navy E-6 aircraft rapidly take to the skies, along with a KC-135 tanker visiting from Grissom ARB, Ind. “From the ops side, we have never launched this many aircraft at once,” said Col. Anthony Butters, 60th Operations Group commander. According to Lt. Col. Brian Lindsey, 60th AMW staff director, this launch “was the equivalent of the world’s third largest tanker fleet—behind Russia and [Britain]—going airborne at the same time.” And this package “provided more airlift capability than 25 percent of the world’s air forces,” he said. (Travis report)