As of March 31, the Air Force had 326,199 individuals on active duty, including 13,305 pilots, according to data released yesterday by the Air Force Personnel Center. That’s a 1,566-airmen increase in end strength compared to the end of the year tally for 2008 and leaves the service about 6,500 short of its end strength target of 332,700 by the end of Fiscal 2010. The end-of-March total includes 64,313 officers and 261,886 enlisted personnel. Nearly one-fifth of the force, or 19.6 percent, are women. The average age of an officer is 35, while it’s 29 for an enlisted airman. The service had 123,772 civilian employees at the end of March.
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.