An Obama staffer apparently decided the President shouldn’t be photographed with the F-22 Raptor—the fighter the Administration succeeded in killing at just 187 aircraft—during his stopover at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska in mid November and ordered the base to remove it from the hangar where the President was to speak, according to a report by The Cable, a Foreign Policy magazine blog. The Cable confirmed with Elmendorf that the White House asked the base to put an F-15 in place of the F-22, the newest fighter operated and maintained by Elmendorf airmen.
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.