Volunteers from the Kansas Air National Guard’s 190th Air Refueling Wing spared one of the unit’s retired KC-135E tankers from the boneyard by securing the aircraft for the Museum of the Kansas National Guard at Forbes Field in Topeka, which is also the wing’s operating location. They moved the tanker, serial number 57-1429, to its new home on Aug. 22, a museum official confirmed to the Daily Report. “When we were requesting the aircraft several years ago, this particular aircraft was presented as one that carried historical significance,” said museum historian Doug Jacobs, in an Aug. 22 release. This KC-135 was one of the first tankers to join the newly formed 190th ARW in 1977, states the release. It accumulated more than 10,000 flight hours on deployments including the first Gulf War in 1990 and 1991. “One crew chief, MSgt. Paul Owens, served on that aircraft for almost 30 years,” noted Jacobs. (Forbes report by 2nd Lt. Matthew Lucht)
Northrop Grumman has broken ground on a major new production facility for the B-21 Raider, the company and the Air Force announced Oct. 6. The construction comes as a top service official said testing on the bomber is going well in the lead up to its planned introduction into the…
