Members of the California ANG’s 129th Rescue Wing, Moffett Field, are back at home after undertaking a dangerous three-day rescue effort, some 1,000 miles from the northern California coast. An MC-130 flew out to sea to intercept a Liberian tanker that had sent out a distress call. Three pararescuemen jumped from the airplane, landed in the ocean with medical gear, and boarded the vessel. Two days later, a 129th RQW HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter came to pick up the rescuers and their patients—one with two broken arms and one suffering from hypothermia after jumping overboard.
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.