CMSAF
Rodney McKinley will be leaving the Air Force this summer after 30 years of service, Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz announced Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. “Chief McKinley is an incomparable leader and an exemplary airman,” Schwartz said during his AFA address. Schwartz added, “He has devoted his entire adult life to our Air Force and to taking care of airmen and their families.” As Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, Schwartz continued, McKinley “has made monumental contributions.” McKinley has been USAF’s 15th CMSAF since June 2006. He said it has been “an honor and privilege” to serve. “I will always be an airman,” he declared, adding that the time spent in the service’s top enlisted post “has been especially humbling” for him. “Everywhere I travel around the globe, I see airmen and their families sacrificing, striving, and fighting for our Air Force, our great nation, and its ideals,” he said. McKinley’s formal retirement ceremony is planned for June 30, along with the appointment of his successor. (Includes SAF/PA report).
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.