Air Force Global Strike Command in April tested every aspect of the command, from bomb crews to cyber defenders, during Exercise Constant Vigilance. The annual exercise, which ran from April 11-15, was the first time the command incorporated all mission planners, aircrews, maintainers, security forces, and administrative personnel in an exercise to test their ability to be ready “at a moment’s notice,” according to a Global Strike release. “It requires a great deal of communication between all operational levels … as well as support organizations, which have largely remained untested in these types of exercises until this point,” Maj. Ryan Graves, chief of exercises for AFGSC, said in the release.
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.