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.
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.