Airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown ARB, Ohio, are flying out of Barksdale AFB, La., to cover areas of Louisiana with insect spray to keep down flies and mosquitoes in the wake of heavy rainfall and flooding after Hurricane Ike, according to a Sept. 22 Barksdale release. The wing’s spray-modified C-130s, which deployed to Barksdale over the weekend, started the spraying operation on Sept. 21. The plan worked out with the Federal Emergency Management Agency was for the unit to blanket southwestern Louisiana and then move to other areas hard hit by the storm.
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.