The 459th Airlift Squadron at Yokota AB, Japan, has traded its C-21s small transport jets for C-12J turboprops in a not quite even swap—four for three. Navy Seaman A.C. Rainey reports that the base has flown the C-21 for 21 years. The C-12s can haul more and land at some fields inaccessible to the sleek C-21.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…