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.
As near-peer adversaries have increased their reach and lethality, the U.S. Air Force is accelerating the tanker fleet recapitalization and aggressively pulling forward the Next Generation Aerial Refueling System (NGAS) to meet the threat. Globally operating the KC-46A has advanced mission...