The Air Force has come a long way in improving housing for airmen and their families, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Wednesday. “We will have built or renovated over 23,000 privatized homes by the end of this fiscal year,” he said in his address at the American Legion’s 92nd national convention in Milwaukee. Lt. Col. Jeff Glenn, Donley’s spokesman, told the Daily Report Wednesday that 1998 was the start date for counting the 23,000 homes. Donley said USAF’s cooperation with private housing developers has been “a quiet, but successful” partnership. “[T]hat has allowed us to leverage taxpayer dollars, providing thousands of new homes to airmen that would otherwise have come years later than they were needed and at higher cost,” he explained. Just last month, junior enlisted airmen moved into new homes at Barksdale AFB, La., that developer Pinnacle is providing. (Includes Barksdale photo caption by SrA. La’Shanette V. Garrett)
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.