Airmen of the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing at the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on Tuesday welcomed members of the Kyrgyzstan military for an inaugural event to build ties between the two nations. During the course of the visit, the airmen took their Kyrgyz guests on tours of a KC-135 tanker and C-17 transport on the Manas flightline. They also showed them the air base’s vast fuel farm. This visit is a part of USAF’s theater security cooperation outreach activities. Manas is an important air hub for supplying US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. (Manas photo caption by SSgt. Nathan Bevier)
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.