Lt. Col. Dirk Smith, commander of the 94th Fighter Squadron at Langley AFB, Va., and Maj. Kevin Dolata, flew the squadron’s first two new F-22A stealth fighters to the Air Combat Command base from Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., production facility on March 3 The 94th FS flew its final F-15 flight in December 2005 and expects to be ready to deploy operationally with the F-22A by May 2007. Lockheed is delivering two aircraft per month to the 94th.
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…