Members of the 407th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron on a routine base-defense patrol outside Ali Base, Iraq, spied insurgents trying to set timers on rockets aimed at the base. The insurgents evidently spotted the security team and skedaddled without finishing the job. Even so, the airmen called in munitions specialists with the 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron to destroy the rockets in place.
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…