The Oregon Air National Guard’s 173rd Fighter Wing at Kingsley Field, Ore., recently hosted more than 40 fighters from units in South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, and California as part of Sentry Eagle 2015, a large force dissimilar air combat training event. The exercise put participants into high-end realistic air threat scenarios where they were often outnumbered, said Maj. Victor Knill, assistant project officer for the exercise, running both defensive and offensive counter air events. Over four days, maintainers and air traffic controllers helped facilitate the launch and recovery of some 1,128 arrivals and departures at Kingsley Field, and fuels airmen pumped more than a million gallons of fuel for the exercise. The Oregon ANG also hosted an open house, welcoming the public to the base to watch sorties launching and to visit static displays and other exhibits. The next iteration of Sentry Eagle is tentatively scheduled for 2017, according to 173rd FW officials.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…