Six C-130Hs from the Delaware Air National Guard’s 166th Airlift Wing conducted a mass-formation training sortie from Newcastle ANG Base, the unit’s largest group flight since 2003, reported WMDT News on Monday. More than 40 aircrew executed a cargo airdrop over Pennsylvania during the April 12 mission, before flying on to New Jersey for low-level navigation training. “It’s not a very common occurrence that one of our [air]planes isn’t dispersed somewhere,” said 166th AW Commander Col. Mike Feeley. “We’ve been to Africa for the Ebola outbreak, we’ve been to South America for natural disasters, we’ve been pretty much all over the world,” he added. The wing’s C-130s conducted a joint tornado response exercise the previous day, receiving simulated victims from Army National Guard UH-60 helicopters for onward evacuation, according to a unit release.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
