A Delaware Air National Guard aeromedical evacuation team was key to the in-flight emergency medical care provided to 11 soldiers injured in the crash of their C-47 Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan Feb. 18, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The five-member ANG team, along with a three-member critical-care air-transport team, worked aboard a C-17 airlifter outfitted with an airborne emergency room/intensive care unit for seven and a half hours on the flight from Bagram Air Base to Germany. “The medical condition of a couple of the patients even improved in the air,” said TSgt. Doug Stevens, a Delaware ANG medical technician.
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.