Boeing announced Tuesday that it has received a $31 million Air Force contract to supply two more avionics upgrade kits for legacy C-130 transports. A kit corresponds to one aircraft. This work is part of the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program’s low-rate initial production phase. Boeing will provide a total of 20 AMP kits during LRIP. It has already delivered several; this contract is a follow-on to keep the kits flowing. Overall, the Air Force intends to modernize the avionics on 221 of its C-130H2, -H2.5, and-H3 aircraft. These C-130s will get a glass cockpit with a head-up display; six flat-panel full-color displays, and night-vision capability. Air Force personnel at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Ga., will install 10 of the 20 LRIP kits. In the past, the Air Force has said Boeing would install five kits and a second company would fit the remaining five.
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…