The Air Force informs us that it is no longer providing the daily airpower summaries that we used to generate our Air Sorties in Southwest Asia table, which has been a popular component of the Daily Report column. Accordingly, the table in Wednesday’s column, with data current through Dec. 19, 2010, is the last one under this format. We will continue to work with the Air Force to illustrate the contributions of airpower to the fight in some similar or new format.
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.