At the top of the April 30 online Daily Report, was an item on the death of an airman at Minot AFB, N.D. SrA. Richard Allan Gallelli Jr., 22, died April 29 from injuries sustained when a weapons training dummy struck him in the head during loading practice with a B-52 bomber. Gallelli had served at Minot with the 17th Munitions Squadron for about three years. (See Airman Dies at Minot for more, including other news reports and the initial Minot release.)
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…