The estimated cost of repairing three C-130s damaged in a tornado last month at Little Rock AFB, Ark., has gone up. Initially pegged at about $6 million to fix the three aircraft, the estimate now stands at twice that, reported the Warner Robins Patriot last week. The Daily Report confirmed the new estimate with a Robins spokesman. The Georgia base is home to the Aerospace Sustainment Directorate that dispatched a team to Little Rock to inspect these airplanes. Two of the three aircraft are 1962-vintage C-130Es that would require $3 million apiece to repair. The third airframe, a C-130H, would need about $6 million of work, according to the assessment team. While the decision to repair or dispose of the aircraft rests with Air Mobility Command, both E models were already slated for retirement later this year, making their refurbishment unlikely, an assessment team member told the Patriot.
The defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.