After a terrorist bomb explodes at a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, Military Airlift Command and Air Force Reserve cargo and aeromedical evacuation aircraft transport 239 dead and 95 wounded Americans to the US and Europe for burial and medical treatment.
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…