The new C-17 aircrews operating out of Hickam AFB, Hawaii, used the request for assistance in moving Australian defense forces as an opportunity to help an ally and get some additional C-17 training. (And, the Aussies picked up pointers, too.) The Hickam airmen in two C-17s moved, over the course of eight days, more than 1.1 million pounds of cargo, transporting 333 passengers, 48 pallets, and 74 vehicles. While they were doing this, they practiced engines running onload/offload—a practice quite common in operational areas like Afghanistan and Iraq—and took care of some needed loadmaster training.
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…