Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne on his recent tour to Southwest Asia visited the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, which is one of two units in SWA supporting a Contingency Aerial Staging Facility medical evacuation operation. The Rock Slater base newspaper reports that he said the CASF and medevac are key to SWA operations. “The miracle of this engagement and this time is medevac,” asserted Wynne. If a wounded airman, soldier, sailor, or marine “can make it to the CASF here,” the survival rate is “above 96 percent,” said Wynne, adding, “This is unheard of in warfare.”
It'll take up to 18 months for Lockheed Martin to deliver the 100 or so F-35s that went directly from production line to storage, awaiting the completion of Tech Refresh 3 testing. Customers haven't complained about the order in which the backlog is being delivered.