Tanker aircraft operating in US Central Command’s area of responsibility offloaded more than 1.05 billion pounds of fuel to more than 82,000 aircraft in 2010, according to statistics from Air Forces Central’s combined air and space operations center at an undisclosed air base in Southwest Asia. That’s an average of roughly 87.5 million pounds of off-loaded fuel each month. “I know my job has an effect on the war effort on a daily basis—and that is helping save lives,” said Capt. Wes Spurlock, a KC-10 pilot assigned to the 9th Air Refueling Squadron at Travis AFB, Calif., who served two combat tours in Southwest Asia last year. 2010 was the third straight year that tanker airmen offloaded more than one billion pounds of fuel to more than 80,000 receiver aircraft. (Scott report by MSgt. Scott T. Sturkol)
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.