NATO air forces held a flag ceremony April 8 at NATO Allied Air Component Command headquarters at Ramstein AB, Germany, to mark the accession of Albania and Croatia as the 27th and 28th members of the alliance. Gen. Roger Brady, head of US Air Forces in Europe and commander of the alliance’s air component, led the ceremony, during which a multinational color guard detail hoisted the flags of the new members for the first time to complete the formation of flags outside of the air component HQ building. The two Balkan states formally joined NATO April 1. (Ramstein report by MSgt. Scott Wagers)
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…