The first Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command personnel arrived in mid October at Offutt AFB, Neb., to begin establishing the command’s new laboratory annex that will open at the base in 2013. “Now that we’re here, we can focus on the details of setting up the lab,” said Greg Fox, lead JPAC representative at Offutt, in an Oct. 24 base release. Roughly 50 personnel, including anthropologists, archaeologists, forensic odontologists, and support personnel, will staff the new annex, which will be housed in Offutt’s Building D, former home of the Air Force Weather Agency. The annex is expected to be fully operational by mid to late 2013, according to the release. The satellite lab will help JPAC meet a congressional mandate to identify 200 remains of unaccounted-for American POWs and MIAs per year, beginning in 2015. JPAC, headquartered at JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, falls under US Pacific Command.
A new think tank analysis finds a hypothetical blended-wing body tanker could offer twice as much refueling performance as the KC-46A Pegasus and recommends the Air Force buy scores of them, as the service prepares to evaluate a BWB demonstrator next year and must juggle its future tanker plans with…