It was April 19 when the Air Force actually went over the one million mark for sorties supporting the global war on terror, service officials told the Daily Report Tuesday. We reported earlier that the service anticipated hitting that astonishing figure on April 21. Officials would not speculate which particular sortie or which aircraft and crew on April 19 actually broke the one million sortie mark.
The Air Force overall reduced its size by 120 aircraft in fiscal year 2021, but kept about the same number of fighter, bomber and attack aircraft, according to data supplied by the service. The F-35 fleet saw the biggest increase while the B-1B bomber fleet saw the largest decline.