Air
Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown ARS, Ohio, sent two C-130H aerial spray aircraft and crews to the Gulf Coast, where they arrived at the staging area in Mississippi April 30 to be ready to provide assistance in the clean up operation following the April 22 explosion and sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig about 130 miles southwest of New Orleans. Another two aircraft and crews were standing by at Youngstown. The unit has the only large area fixed wing aerial spray unit, normally providing larvicide and insect eradication and vegetation control at training ranges, but the airmen train also to help disperse oil slicks by spraying a chemical that helps break it down for natural assimilation by the ocean. According to a May 1 Miami Herald report, the 910th AW aircraft had begun their spraying operation. (Also see 910th AW release; Youngstown Vindicator report; AFPS report by Donna Miles; Deepwater Horizon response Web site)
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.