Saying it is “tough to argue with results,” Col. Todd Harmer, vice commander of the active 388th Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, says the integration of the 388th and the Air Force Reserve Command 419th FW works and the proof is in the active and Reserve airmen deployed now to Iraq, where the Total Force team of pilots and maintainers are “doing exactly what the combatant commander needs them to do.” SSgt. Matthew Rosine reports that the two wings, as of July, are in Phase III of their Total Force Integration effort, and Col. Buck Sams, 419th vice commander, said, “We are demonstrating success on a daily basis, but there is never going to be an end-state to this [because] it is always going to … continue to develop and mature itself.”
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.