The local community honored fallen airman SSgt. Daniel Fannin with a bronze plaque at AWACS Park, just outside the gate of Tinker AFB, Okla., earlier this month. “Everyone reassures me that Daniel won’t be forgotten, but nonetheless, it has been my biggest fear that he might be,” his wife Sonya Fannin said at the April 4 dedication ceremony, according to an Air Force release. Fannin and three other airmen were killed in an MC-12 Liberty crash near Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, on April 27, 2013. He had already completed three tours deployed from Tinker as an AWACS and MC-12 system operator. “Memorializing Danny here in this public park, a place in which our civilian friends and family can visit and heal on their own time is truly special,” added his wife. The community of Del City, Okla., honored Fannin with the inscription “service before self” on the tail of an E-3 Sentry replica in the park as well.
The Air Force is planning to invest nearly $1.7 billion to continue modernizing the B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers over the next five years, revising earlier plans to retire those aircraft before the B-21 Raider is fielded in bulk.