FOB Tacoma » 8th Airlift Squadron

JBLM air crews see a reduction in training hours while deployments continue

Adam Ashton — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 19:10:17 +0000

The comings and goings of two Joint Base Lewis-McChord Air Force squadrons this week show that local airmen are still at war overseas even as the Pentagon is cutting spending at home.

Lt. Gen. Darren McDew in a visit to the base last week told reporter Christian Hill that flying hours are being cut about 20 percent to help the Air Force control costs this year.

Previously, senior officers told the newspaper Lewis-McChord’s 62^nd Airlift Wing was not seeing much of a reduction in training because its crews are constantly deploying to support the war in Afghanistan. Their training is …

JBLM Air Force squadrons trading places for two-month deployments

Adam Ashton — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:07:16 +0000

About 60 airmen are deploying out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord today for a two-month mission supporting troops in Afghanistan and other locations around the Middle East.

Lewis-McChord’s 8th Airlift Squadron is due to replace another local unit, the 10th Airlift Squadron, at two bases in what the Air Force calls Southwest Asia. The 10th Airlift Squadron should be home in the next few weeks.

The airmen regularly fly C-17 Globemaster III jets to deliver troops and supplies to the war in Afghanistan. On past deployments, they also have been tapped to support missions in North Africa.

Lewis-McChord airmen deliver tanks to Afghanistan

Adam Ashton — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:47:09 +0000

The Air Force this week put a spotlight on how C17-Globemasters flying out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord are helping build up forces in Afghanistan in a profile on a loadmaster who delivered some of the first M1 Abrams tanks to the battlefield.

This piece highlights a busy year for airmen in Lewis-McChord’s 62nd Airlift Wing, from delivering humanitarian supplies to Haiti to hauling beans and bullets to the front lines in Afghanistan.

Landlocked Afghanistan presents different challenges for the Pentagon in delivering heavy equipment to the field. In Iraq, equipment could be shipped by sea to …

McChord airmen coming home after conquering “Everest”

Matt Misterek — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:00:27 +0000

More than 120 airmen from Joint Base Lewis-McChord will return from a 120-day Middle East deployment Thursday morning after having set a record with what squadron leaders called “Operation Everest.”

In early August, the air crews with McChord Field’s 8th Airlift Squadron dropped a record-breaking 837 bundles on 22 drop zones with a combined weight of more than 1.1 million pounds of cargo, according to a spokeswoman. That is the most bundles ever dropped in a week by a C-17 cargo jet squadron, she said.

All told during the deployment, the squadron flew 2,789 sorties, equaling more than 7,000 …

100 airmen from McChord’s 8th Airlift Squadron get orders for the Middle East

Kris Sherman — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:30:20 +0000

More than 100 airmen from Joint-Base Lewis McChord will soon deploy to the Middle East for missions in and around Iraq, Afghanistan and into Africa, the Air Force said today.

The members of the 8th Airlift Squadron of the 62nd Airlift Wing based at McChord Field will will be gone for about five months, according to a news release on the base website.

No date was given for their departure.

They’ll take over operations from the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, said the news release from Air Force Capt. Ali Kojak.

Their mission is to provide C-17 …