A C-5 transport from Air Force Reserve Command’s 445th Airlift Wing earlier this month completed the wing’s first mission into Bagram AB, Afghanistan, delivering four new armored ground vehicles directly to troops on the front lines. The Galaxy left its home of Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, May 6 and returned home May 14. “The flight into Bagram went pretty smoothly,” said Lt. Col. James Couzins, a pilot from the wing. “We were on the ground less than three hours and never left the aircraft.” The US military opened a new runway at Bagram in 2006 that is long enough and reinforced to accommodate the C-5. The first C-5 landed on the improved runway in 2007. (AFRC News Service report)
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.