Ninety four airmen from the 507th Air Refueling Wing at Tinker AFB, Okla., deployed in December to Incirlik AB, Turkey. The group will fly KC-135 refueling missions in support of Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The deployment, one of the largest this year from Tinker, will last two months and will be followed by another from the 507th ARW, expected sometime in the summer of 2017, according to an Air Force Reserve Command release. The two-month deployment is shorter than previous Reserve unit deployments, and is designed to keep maintenance and operations teams together both in this assignment and for home station training, the release states.
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.