Boeing has signed a lease to construct three hangars at the Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul Technology Center (MROTC) across from the Oklahoma Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla. This is the first major development for the MROTC, a joint venture of Trammell Crow Co. and Battelle Memorial Institute to create a major military and commercial aircraft facility that ultimately may comprise 17 hangars and more than one million square feet of industrial, education, and training facilities. Boeing officials plan to use the new hangars as the site for upgrades to the Air Force’s E-3 AWACS fleet. They expect to complete the first hangar by November and the other two by August 2008. The work would be done in conjunction with the Tinker ALC, which maintains the AWACS aircraft.
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.