IT has been 17 years since the first United States Air Force (USAF) student pilots were trained on the Hawker Beechcraft T-1A Jayhawk at Reese AFB, in Lubbock, Texas. The Jayhawk remains the USAF's principal trainer for preparing fledgling aviators to fly the largest aircraft the service operates. With wings newly pinned on, T-1A graduates move into formal training units (FTUs) and become the next generation of pilots to primarily fly large transports, signals intelligence gathering platforms, command and control aircraft and the backbone of the USAF inventory, the Boeing KC-135 and Boeing C-17 Globemaster III.
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