A pilot with the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing experienced an in-flight emergency Friday morning about 13 minutes into a training flight and needed to jettison his external fuel tanks, burning off most of the fuel first, reports the Burlington Free Press. The pilot dropped the tanks over a planned location in Lake Champlain and landed safely at the wing’s home at Burlington Airport. A subsequent Free Press report said the Coast Guard had found one of the tanks near Willsboro Point, N.Y., and that an environmental team from Albany, N.Y., would retrieve it. The Coast Guard was still searching for the second tank.
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.