Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown ARS, Ohio, bid farewell to the third C-130H transport it is losing as part of force structure changes reducing the wing to eight primary aircraft, plus one backup. The airplane, tail number 3021, departed Youngstown for good on March 5, bound for its new home at Little Rock AFB, Ark., according to a March 6 wing release. “It’s a great airplane,” said MSgt. Sam Phillippi, crew chief of this C-130. “I hate to see it go,” he said. The two previous C-130s to leave Youngstown also shifted to Little Rock, states the release. The wing moved a fourth C-130 to backup status. These changes are not tied to the service’s Fiscal 2015 budget proposal, but resulted from previous force-structure decisions. The aircraft reductions will cause the wing to lose approximately 50 full-time and 150 part-time positions by the end of this fiscal year, states the release. (Youngstown report by MSgt. Bob Barko Jr.)
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.