It is too soon to break out the bubbly, but the Air Force has indeed dispatched some officials—an earlier report had them at the base last month—to scope out whether the service should reopen the runway at Malmstrom AFB, Mont. The base has not had a fixed-wing flying mission since it lost its KC-135s under BRAC 1995. Currently, the base has military helicopters to support the ICBM mission. The Montana Congressional delegation has been working to secure new missions—of any type—for the base. Meanwhile some Great Falls residents have been fighting growth outside the base to sustain the possibility of a new flying mission.
Lockheed Martin projects more than a billion dollars of losses on a classified program, but company officials said April 23 they are confident it will turn profitable by 2028 and become a "franchise" system in the U.S. military.