Boeing announced Monday that it has connected the F-15E mission training center at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, to the Air Force’s distributed mission operations network, thereby enabling Mountain Home’s Strike Eagle pilots, for the first time, to be able to train virtually at home with pilots located around the world. “This new capability,” said Mark McGraw, Boeing’s vice president for training systems and services, ”provides realistic training at a fraction of the cost of live-fly training exercises, which require you to bring all of your personnel and aircraft together in one location.” Mountain Home is the first of three F-15E training centers that Boeing will link to the network this year. DMO installations are scheduled for completion this fall at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., and RAF Lakenheath, the company said.
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.