Personnel 
with the Air Force Technical Applications Center’s Detachment 1 paid a visit to Patrick AFB, Fla., with a WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft to allow base personnel to tour the specially configured platform, announced Patrick officials on Nov. 6. Members of the detachment, based at Offutt AFB, Neb., control the nuclear-monitoring equipment onboard the Air Force’s two Constant Phoenix airframes. Offutt’s 45th Reconnaissance Squadron operates them. The WC-135s, in the inventory since 1965, are the only US airplanes that collect air samples to detect radioactive elements in the atmosphere as part of US compliance monitoring of international arms control agreements. The jet that visited Patrick on Oct. 25 was the one that flew missions to monitor radioactive emissions from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant after a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan in March 2011. Those samples “enabled our scientists to develop plume models that provided scientific evidence for senior leaders to make critical decisions regarding the evacuation of Americans in Japan,” said Lt. Col. John Baycura, detachment commander. (Patrick report by Susan A. Romano)
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.