The first of about 3, 500 paratroopers were to board C-17 aircraft from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina and arrive in Haiti before nightfall.

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The UK troops arrived with around 60 U.S. personnel in eight C-130 aircraft on Thursday to inspect the base for possible use in a large-scale humanitarian operation.

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The U.S. C-17 transport planes began flights from the French base in Istres, France, to Bamako.

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After a refuelling stop at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, the C-17 continued to Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul.

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The crews arrived four days after the 24-foot tsunami had swept the plant, and in the ensuing 10 weeks they logged 507 flight hours crisscrossing the skies over Japan in a Beechcraft C-12 twin engine turboprop out of nearby Yokota Air Base.

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Compdata looked at base salaries for 26 senior management jobs below C-level.

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It takes less than an hour to fly aboard a C-130 cargo plane from Kandahar to the main British military base in Helmand province.

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Hallums left Balad Air Base on a U.S. Air Force C-17, the military said in a statement.

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The obvious, and probably growing, need for the kind of power projection made possible by C-17 airlifters should compel a careful reassessment of the defense industrial base's capacity to meet such needs over the long haul.

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Since India is expected to place an order for ten C-17s within the next six months, the U.S. industrial base for heavy airlifters could theoretically be maintained for several more years.

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