Eight C-130s from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units in California and Wyoming fly 254 sorties to drop 732,000 gallons of fire-suppressant liquid over fires in southern California-one of the largest aerial fire-fighting operations then on record.
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…