S
ome explosive ordnance disposal airmen deployed to Iraq last week got to deviate from their usual hazardous task of finding and safing explosives when they were asked to explosively dismantle a stranded C-130 near Baghdad airport. The Hercules had been stuck in a field since June 27 following an emergency landing. Concerned about security, the Air Force decided it would get EOD technicians to conduct “controlled detonations” to break it into smaller pieces for transport. “My team was kind of excited about going out there and explosively cutting up the aircraft,” said SMSgt. Pervis King, EOD superintendent at Sather AB, Iraq, and acknowledged he had never seen it done. Working with the EOD technicians were aircraft maintainers and, to establish a security perimeter, coalition and Iraqi forces. It took a total of four detonations to cut the aircraft down to moveable chunks. (AFPN report)
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.