Norway just spent $516 million on four new C-130J Hercules aircraft to replace their 1969-vintage C-130H models. Two will arrive next year, one is slated to come in 2009, and the fourth is due in 2010. Air Force Materiel Command Foreign Military Sales organizations and Air Force Security Assistance Center personnel had to act fast to seal the deal for these aircraft because the Norwegian ministry needed to present its parliament with details about the purchase. The normal timeframe for completing such a sale is 180 days, but AFSAC at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, managed the feat in less than 90 days. Norway plans to use the new Hercules for intratheater humanitarian relief operations in such locations as Sudan and Afghanistan, as well as to support Norway’s military involvement in global operations.
Just days after a Defense Intelligence Agency report predicted new ballistic missile testing by North Korea, the Pyongyang regime fired a a submarine-launched ballistic missile which landed in the Sea of Japan. While U.S. Indo-Pacific Command downplayed the test as representing no new threat to the U.S. or regional allies,…