US Air Force B-2 bombers flying from Andersen AFB, Guam, are dropping weapons on Australia’s Delamere bombing range this week as part of a bi-national exercise worked out last year. (News of the plan last year sparked a local outcry, as critics claimed that past training activity by Americans had spawned accidents.) The Christian Science Monitor reports that this marks the first time US aircraft have used the Australian range since the two countries signed a bilateral agreement in 2004.
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…