The fulfillment of Air Force Global Strike Command is on “an aggressive timeline with a lot of work to be done,” the command’s first commander, Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, said Tuesday in Bossier City, La., reports the Shreveport Times. His headquarters at Barksdale AFB, La., is gaining “half a dozen new faces” every day, Klotz said. The headquarters will comprise about 900 personnel by fall 2010, and, in the interim, the new command will take over the service’s ICBM force—in December—followed by the nuclear-capable bomber force—in February 2010. AFGSC will comprise 20th Air Force, responsible for three Minuteman ICBM wings, and 8th Air Force, which will shed its reconnaissance assets and retain two B-52H wings and the service’s only B-2 wing. Klotz said last week that his measure of success is when all his airmen realize the importance of their tasks.
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.