Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne tells reporters that USAF would limit the new bidding war over the CSAR-X combat search and rescue aircraft replacement program to the original three contractors. Boeing won the program last year (see Nov. 9, 2006), but the Government Accountability Office upheld two successive protests by losing bidders-Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky. (On April 6, 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended the CSAR-X program.)
Less than a day after arriving in the Middle East, F-15E Strike Eagles from Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. defended Israel from an Iranian attack in April 2024.