Officials at Dyess AFB, Tex., plan this spring to celebrate 50 years of C-130 transports operating at the northcentral Texas base. The celebration will take place April 28-30 in conjunction with the Dyess Big Country Airfest at the Abilene regional airport. Events will highlight the C-130’s presence over those five decades and the relationship that Dyess airmen and the local community have shared. They will include an anniversary banquet on April 28. Dyess, in addition to hosting the B-1 bombers of Air Combat Command’s 7th Bomb Wing, is home to the C-130s of Air Mobility Command’s 317th Airlift Group. Last April, the group received the first of 28 new-build C-130Js that it is slated to receive to replace its legacy C-130s. (Dyess release)
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.