Air Mobility Command not only sends its transport aircraft around the world, it has specialist airmen at key facilities to ensure the transport and deployment process works well 24/7. AMC’s 732nd Air Mobility Squadron at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, is one such unit. Its airmen recently managed to send “the biggest group ever to deploy from Alaska off in only eight days,” says TSgt. Rafael Pena-Perez. The Elmendorf unit’s 270-plus airmen loaded 3,417 soldiers and 484,500 pounds of luggage aboard 15 commercial aircraft, in addition to 483 tons of cargo on four C-5s, and three chartered B-747s. On a yearly basis, squadron members process 60,000 passengers, maintain more than 7,000 transiting aircraft, and load 28.8 million pounds of cargo, bound for destinations in Alaska, the Pacific region, and points beyond.
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.
