A retired F-15 housed at JB Langley-Eustis, Va., is scheduled to leave the base next month on a transcontinental road trip to its new home at the Chico Air Museum in northern California. “This is the longest movement of a military aircraft of this size on a truck ever attempted,” said museum founder Noel Wheeler, reported the Chico Enterprise-Record. Early last year, the Air Force approved the museum’s request for the F-15 with the stipulation that the museum move the aircraft from Langley to Chico at its own expense. Disassembled at Langley, the F-15 will traverse 10 states on two tractor trailers, just clearing the height required to safely pass under several overpasses along the way, said museum officials. Langley’s last operational F-15s departed the base last September as part of the Air Force’s drawdown of some 250 legacy fighters.
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.