Air Force Reservists at Altus AFB, Okla., moved to larger facilities on base for a potential future role training aircrew for the service’s new KC-46A tanker. If selected to host the Air Force’s yet-to-be-announced KC-46 Formal Training Unit, Altus would gain approximately 578 new Active Duty, Reserve, and civilian personnel, Altus spokeswoman 1st Lt. Katie Cousins told the Daily Report on Monday. To accommodate the possible influx, Air Force Reserve Command’s 730th Air Mobility Training Squadron shifted to across the ramp. Altus is the Air Force’s preferred location for the tanker schoolhouse. If chosen, “we’re going to get KC-46 manning in our squadron,” said 730th ATMS Commander Maj. Bryan Bailey, in a Feb. 10 base release. The 730th AMTS stood up in 2012 under an association with Altus’ Active Duty 97th Wing to train C-17 and KC-135 aircrew. If picked, the wing would grow a third Active Duty squadron for the KC-46, equally buttressed by the Reservists of the 703rd AMTS, said Cousins.
Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii is trialing novel energy technology to provide electrical power and hydrogen fuel in the kind of isolated and austere outposts the Air Force will need in the Pacific theater for its new Agile Combat Employment way of warfare.