Travis CRG Trains in Sierra Nevada: In California’s remote Honey Lake Valley, northwest of Reno, Nev., the 570th Contingency Response Group, based at Travis AFB, Calif., spent 10 days last month taking part in its first full-scale exercise, practicing a descent onto a remote runway and setting up air operations in a hostile environment. “We want to be able to rapidly supply soldiers on the battlefield and to do that we fly supplies and personnel into the most forward-operating locations available,” Lt. Col. Rick Matton, the 570th deputy commander, told the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times. He added, that the CRG airmen could open up an airfield anywhere “as long as we’ve got a radio and a forklift.” (Our article “The First-In Mobility Crowd” offers some background on CRGs.)
More than 20 tankers lined the runway at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., on March 27, for an “elephant walk” and the base’s largest mass launch of aircraft ever. Sixteen KC-46s and five KC-135s participated in the flush, with aircraft and Airmen from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing and the 931st…