It’s hard to believe, but the arrival Oct. 30 at the South Pole of a ski-equipped LC-130 from New York’s Air National Guard unit, the 109th Airlift Wing, marked 50 years of military flights to the Pole. The aircrews conduct regular resupply flights to support the scientific research stations at the Pole and throughout Antarctica. A Navy crew, aboard a Navy variant of a DC-3 first landed at the South Pole Oct. 31, 1956. In 1998, the Navy turned over the mission to the Air Force.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.