After signing an agreement with the Ethiopian government last November, the Air Force is helping to modernize Arba Minch Airport in southwest Ethiopia, reports Addis Fortune, Ethiopia’s largest English-language newspaper. Workers are extending the airport’s 9,170 foot, hard-surface runway, and making facility and service improvements, so that the site could potentially accommodate USAF airlifters, according to the report. The airport is located about 340 miles south of the country’s capital, Addis Ababa. Seventeenth Air Force at Ramstein AB, Germany, supervises USAF’s air-related outreach activities on the African continent, including those to build the capacity of partner nations’ air forces. (For more, see Engagement in Africa from the Air Force Magazine archives)
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.