On Fri
day afternoon, Michael B. Donley shed his “acting” label to become the 22nd Secretary of the Air Force. The official swearing-in ceremony took place at the Air Force Memorial where Defense Secretary Robert Gates administered the oath of office. Donley was fresh back from a week-long trip through the US Central Command area of responsibility, where he stopped and met with airmen at seven bases. His take on the Air Force contribution to the war on terror: “I’ve seen it now. I’ve touched it. I’ve seen the airmen that are doing it. I can go back to the Secretary of Defense and I can say, ‘Mr. Secretary, with respect to the global war on terror, the Air Force is all in.’ ” At his last stop, he asserted, “I made a list of the different [Air Force] missions I observed over the past week and it’s a really long list.” Talking with airmen at each location, Donley emphasized the need to refocus on the nuclear enterprise and discussed manning, deployment cycles, and the service’s “aging [aircraft] inventory,” mentioning it is “absolutely critical to the mission around the globe and in the AOR” to acquire a new tanker. (Releases from his trip include Manas report, Bagram report, 386th AEW report, Kirkuk report, Joint Base Balad report, CAOC report, and 380th AEW 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.