Airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing in Ohio who are members of DOD’s sole fixed-wing unit dedicated to aerial spraying on Wednesday adapted their unique capability to the largest oil spill response exercise—Safe Seas 2006—in coastal waters. This event had the airmen flying their specially equipped C-130s near San Francisco. Last year, they covered some three million acres along the Gulf Coast, spraying for mosquitoes and filth flies following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
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…