More than 70 airmen from at least 25 career fields will fly to South America on Oct. 26 aboard a C-17 to participate in the first Operation Southern Partner, an Air Forces Southern-led undertaking aimed at providing intensive, periodic subject-matter exchanges with military members of partner nations in Central and South America. This Southern Partner will run through Nov. 7 and include week-long exchanges with members of the air forces of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, AFSOUTH said in a release Oct. 1. There will also be more than 10 outreach and community relations projects during this time. “Operation Southern Partner is a tremendous opportunity for US airmen to work alongside partner nation airmen—learning from each other new processes, tactics, techniques, and procedures to increase the effectiveness of our Air Forces during future operations or natural disaster and humanitarian aid response,” said Lt. Gen. Norm Seip, AFSOUTH commander. Examples of the areas of exchange are: aircraft maintenance, command and control, English language, enlisted/officer professional military education, general medicine, intelligence, logistics, public affairs, and RED HORSE. Southern Partner complements ongoing US Southern Command theater security cooperation activities, AFSOUTH said. Already planning is underway for the second Southern Partner event scheduled for next spring.
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.