The last of the KC-135s of the California Air National Guard’s 163rd Air Refueling Wing has taken flight from the unit’s home at March ARB, Calif., reports the Riverside Press-Enterprise. The Air Guardsmen are now embracing their new mission—operating Predator unmanned aerial vehicles. The unit will have a name change and switches operational control from Air Mobility Command to Air Combat Command with its new mission. The 163rd airmen are working at Nellis AFB, Nev., with the UAVs, until construction upgrades at March are complete later this year.
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…