Lt. Col. Philip Hoover, commander of the 389th Fighter Squadron at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, on March 16 flew the last F-16 Viper mission out of Mountain Home. The squadron is trading its F-16s—the last five of which leave the base next week—for the F-15E Strike Eagle under BRAC 2005. The 389th FS has flown F-16s since 1991 and began the transition to the F-15E in December. The base also will say goodbye to its F-15C Eagles as it becomes a “core F-15E installation.”
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.