MSgt. Darren Bradley, a flight engineer, has amassed 5,000 flying hours in the HH-60G Pave Hawk combat search and rescue helicopter. Assigned to the 56th Rescue Squadron at RAF Lakenheath, England, Bradley has flown a total of 5,270 hours in Air Force helicopters, starting his career in 1986 as a UH-1N Huey flight engineer. Fellow flight engineer MSgt. Kevin Marlatt said that he knows of no other airman to so far reach 5,000 hours in the HH-60. He said, “The chances of someone reaching this milestone aren’t just far and few between, but they are virtually slim to non-existent.” Bradley commented at the milestone ceremony in which he had his feet painted green to add his “Jolly Green” footprints to the ceiling in the squadron’s flight planning room, “I’ve been shooting f or [this milestone] my whole career, and it was my goal to get here before I retire.” Bradley’s next assignment is to instruct Pave Hawk student aircrew at Kirtland AFB, N.M. (RAF Lakenheath report by Capt. Alysia Harvey)
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…