Loadmasters from Westover ARB, Mass., prepped and loaded a C-5 transport to deploy 175 marines to Guatemala for counternarcotics operations with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Guatemalan police. These members of Air Force Reserve Command’s 439th Airlift Control Flight assisted in fitting several UH-1Y helicopters, Humvees, and supplies aboard the C-5 at MCAS Cherry Point, N.C. “We taught the marines how to prepare hazardous cargo documentation, weigh and mark equipment, and complete the joint inspection process required to onload cargo onto Air Force aircraft,” said SrA. Michael Muise, one of the loadmasters, in a Aug. 16 Westover release. Working with aerial porters from Patrick AFB, Fla., the loadmasters “optimized load plans . . . for easy onload and offload of the cargo” to ease the aircrew’s workload upon arrival in Central America, added Muise. Marines from Cherry Point, Camp Lejeune, and MCAS New River in North Carolina shipped out on Aug. 8 as part of a counter-trafficking task force. (Westover report by 2nd Lt. Matthew Borowski)
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.