🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇱 - US-Iran Air Campaign (Feb 15 – Apr 16)

Over the last 2 months, Rerum Novarum has tracked 7,642 publicly available US military flights in support of Operation Epic Fury. Involving over 572 unique aircraft, marking the largest US air power buildup since Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Over the course of the 60-day air campaign, 1,601 transatlantic crossings were made, averaging just over 26 transatlantic flights per day. 195 unique cargo aircraft made 1335 flights across the Atlantic, and 182 unique aerial refueling aircraft made over 228 flights across the Atlantic; over 80% of these aircraft made a 1 way trip across, inferring they stayed within the CENTCOM/EUCOM AOR to support the operation. The US Military currently fields roughly 475 aerial refuelers, meaning almost 40% of the military's refueler aircraft were used to support Operation Epic Fury. Many of these refuelers were likely towing attack aircraft into the region, which we cannot track.

In the two weeks leading up to the operation (Feb 14→28), 1191 flights were made into Europe and the Middle East, with an average of 85 flights per day. Since the first day of the war, 28th of February, the US Military has maintained an average of 141 military flights per day within the CENTCOM/EUCOM AOR, with the busiest week being March 14→21, with 1262 flights, and an average of 180 flights per day.

The most active aircraft type during this operation was;
C-17 (Cargo): 3399 Flights.
KC-135 (Aerial Refueler): 2703 Flights.
C-130 (Small Cargo): 850 Flights
KC-46 (Aerial Refueler): 217 Flights
C-5M (Large Cargo): 185 Flights

These cargo aircraft (C-5s, C-17s, and C-130s) flights combined have a theoretical maximum uplift capacity of 651,385,985 lb (295,555 metric tons), or about 1,427,000 cubic metres of cargo space.

The attached video shows the full 60 day air campaign of all publicly available flights.

This data only includes public flight data; military aircraft can, and do, turn off their public ADSB transmitter whenever they want to, therefor flights such as B-52's or fighter jets rarely show themselves on public data except for special cases which makes them hard to track. Although aircraft used for cargo or refueling generally fly with this data publicly accessible in safer areas,meaning the overwhelming majority of these support flights were captured.