Senior Air Force officials say the new arrangement to use 18 Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve C-130H transports temporarily to build a C-130 schoolhouse at Little Rock AFB, Ark., is a great example of the service leveraging the strengths across its active duty and reserve components. “Guard and Reserve crews are well versed in a variety of C-130 mission sets and are certainly well-qualified for this training mission,” stated Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, AFR boss. “I’m glad this partnership will better assist the Air Force in training qualified total force C-130 crews,” added Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt, ANG director. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said the service leadership “consulted extensively” with the adjutants general of the affected states to reach this deal, which came after controversy doomed the original plan to permanently strip the Guard and Reserve units of aircraft. (See More Details on C-130 Plan below.) (Air Force 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.