Lt. Col. Sam Milam, commander of the 75th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron and deployed from Moody AFB, Ga., amassed 3,000 combat flying hours during a Feb. 28, 2009, sortie out of Bagram AB, Afghanistan, according to a March 5 photo release; a week earlier, he also flew on the unit’s 10,000th combat flight hour sortie. n A1C Jimmy Farias, deployed from Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, to Afghanistan, set a record for most fuel pumped within 52 days, providing 1,001,978 gallons to 428 coalition aircraft, according to a March 2 photo release. n On Feb. 20, Lt. Col. Brenda Cartier became the first female flying squadron commander in Air Force Special Operations Command when she took leadership of the 4th Special Operations Squadron, an AC-130U Spooky gunship unit at Hurlburt Field, Fla., per a Feb. 23 Hurlburt 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.