Two C-130 Hercules aircraft from the California Air National Guard are helping to fight fires in Idaho for the next month, reports Associated Press news service. The Air Guardsmen and their airlifters fitted out with special tanks to dispense foam or water are working with the National Interagency Fire Center to cover the area from Montana to Northern California. The NIFC calls in Air Force support when it has exhausted other firefighting air assets. The North Carolina ANG had five fire-fighting C-130s working in Arizona earlier this summer.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
