A T-38 
Talon last week rolled out of the paint shop at Randolph AFB, Tex., resplendent in the trainer aircraft’s original color scheme. This rollout was part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the first T-38 touching down at the San Antonio installation. Designed as a safe, high-performance platform for introducing pilots to flying fast, jet-powered aircraft, the Northrop-built Talon became Air Force’s first supersonic jet trainer. “The T-38, I think, is a very good example of the convergence of technology and the military requirements coming together at a propitious time,” said Welco Gasich, Northrop T-38 development engineer. Nearly 70,000 airmen began their flying career in the Talon. The first T-38 prototype flew in April 1959. (Randolph report by Maj. Rosaire Bushey)
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…