The 36th Rescue Flight at Fairchild AFB, Wash., transferred from under the organizational control of the base’s 336th Training Group to the 58th Operations Group at Kirtland AFB, N.M. Despite the shift, the training flight’s mission of providing helicopter support to the Air Force Survival School at Fairchild will not change, said officials in Fairchild’s June 13 release. “I am confident that this transfer of authority will be transparent to the members of the 336th TRG and the 36th RQF as well as the students that we train and support,” said Col. William Thomas, 336th TRG commander. The Fairchild group is the Air Force’s sole unit responsible for training survival, evasion, resistance, escape, or SERE, specialists. “The change was basically a cost-saving measure,” said Maj. Matthew Johnson, 36th RQF commander. He added, “The 36th RQF has proven itself indispensable to the survival school mission and will continue to do so in the future.” The transfer-of-authority ceremony was on June 7. (Fairchild report by SrA. Benjamin Stratton)
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.