The Air Force’s C-17 transport fleet has surpassed two million total flying hours, less than 18 years since C-17 operations began, Air Forces Central officials announced. A C-17 operating from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, reached this flight-hour milestone for the fleet on Dec. 10 during an airdrop mission over Afghanistan. The Air Force has been operating C-17s since June 1993. Today the fleet size stands at 205 airframes, with delivery of the latest new-build C-17 last week to Charleston AFB, S.C., an Air Mobility Command spokesman confirmed to the Daily Report Monday. The Air Force has ordered an additional eight C-17s from Boeing and is authorized to acquire 10 more beyond that for an eventual fleet of 223. According to AFCENT, C-17s accumulated the first million flying hours by 2006 and needed only four years to amass the second million. (Bagram photo caption by SSgt. Christopher Boitz)
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