About 40 Air National Guard members from the 185th Air Refueling Wing based in Sioux City, Iowa, deployed to NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen, Germany, in February to support the NATO AWACS mission. NATO AWACS E-3A aircraft fly airborne command and control missions for counter-ISIS operations over Iraq and Syria, Eastern European surveillance, and Mediterranean maritime operations. The 185th ARW group is one component of a rotating ANG force that supports the NATO mission with refueling flights. “This has always been a very successful partnership,” said Royal Netherlands Air Force Capt. Andre Bongers, a Geilenkirchen spokesman, according to a press release. “During 40 weeks per year the Air Guard provides essential training to the NATO E-3A component. This is vital because pilots at the E-3A component normally stay around for only four years.” The Iowa ANG group will complete their tour at the end of the week and will be succeeded by members of an ANG unit from Topeka, Kan.
More than 20 tankers lined the runway at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., on March 27, for an “elephant walk” and the base’s largest mass launch of aircraft ever. Sixteen KC-46s and five KC-135s participated in the flush, with aircraft and Airmen from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing and the 931st…