Members of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., recently took special note of the fact that their F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters have amassed 250,000 hours of operation. Col. John Forsythe, commander of the 49th Operations Group, flew the record flight on July 25. The Air Force wants to move up retirement of its F-117 fleet to 2008 and has extended an olive branch to New Mexico lawmakers by announcing it plans to station a unit of its new F-22A stealth fighters in New Mexico.
Boeing received a $2.47 billion Air Force contract Nov. 25 for 15 more KC-46s, bringing to 183 the number of Pegasus tankers on contract to all customers, foreign and domestic. The new contract—for Lot 12 of the initially planned KC-46 buy—is to be completed by 2029.
