The Air Force’s Force Shaping Board, which met March 12, identified 1,347 out of 1,626 officers in the 2004 and 2003 year groups to separate from the Air Force by Sept. 29, 2007. A May 7 release states that the officers in question received word from their senior raters on May 2. Options still available for these officers include the Blue to Green—Air Force to Army—and Palace Chase—active to reserve—programs. Time is running out, though, with June 1 and July 1 cutoff dates, respectively.
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…