Air Force's C-17 crews train for night operations.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: Cover Story

To speed troops and supplies into combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force has begun training C-17 Globemaster transport crews to fly airlift operations in the dark of night, without artificial lighting.

Traditionally, this dangerous mission has been conducted mainly by MC-130 Combat Talon aircrews of the U.S. Special Operations Command, usually in connection with relatively small, clandestine assignments. They have been supplemented, when necessary, by C-5 Galaxy and C-141 Starlifter crews from the Air Force's Air Mobility Command.

As demands for their services grew, however, Air Force leaders decided to experiment with the movement of much larger numbers of forces and equipment at night. For that mission, the C-17 became the platform of choice. (related story p. 37) The tactic has produced some spectacular successes, officials said.

In November 2001, C-17s landed in the dark on a dirt runway at Camp Rhino in Afghanistan, delivering 481 troops and 970 short tons of equipment over eight days. It was the first-ever C-17 combat dirt landing using night-vision goggles.

In April 2003, in one of the largest airborne operations since Normandy, C-17s dropped more than 1,000 paratroopers at night into Northern Iraq to seize an enemy airfield. Within a few days, a full brigade--the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vincenza, Italy--was on the ground in the Kurdish-controlled region, which had been denied to U.S. forces when neighboring Turkey refused to allow them to pass through its territory.

The eight-hour nighttime flight from Italy's Aviano Air Base was the first time that the Globemaster was used to insert paratroopers during combat. The drop included about 20 airmen who, once they hit the ground, rapidly prepared the airfield to be used by U.S. aircraft. (related story p. 39)

"This is a historic milestone in the evolution of the C-17," said Air Force Gen. John W. Handy, head of the U.S. Transportation Command and the Air Mobility Command, in a published statement.

The C-17 has been used many times in airborne training missions and was instrumental in Afghanistan in humanitarian airdrops of fired rations, but this was the first time the Globemaster was used as a platform to insert paratroopers during combat, officials said.

Aircraft and aircrews from Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.; and McChord Air Force Base, Wash., worked closely with planners from the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., and the U.S...