Pacific Air Forces recently kicked off operations of the Pacific Integrated Air and Missile Defense Center at JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, announced the command. The center is modeled on facilities already in use in US Central Command’s and US European Command’s respective areas of responsibilities. It gives US forces the ability to boost air and missile defense cooperation with friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region, including training and educating them in operations and planning, states the PACAF release. PACAF boss Gen. Lori Robinson oversees the center. She’s said enhanced IAMD cooperation is one of her top priorities, according to the release. Once the center is fully operational, it will host seminars, exercises, and information-sharing events, and will disseminate doctrine, tactics, techniques, procedures, and lessons learned among the partners nations.
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.