The National Guard Bureau-sponsored Business and Industry Days event last week in Wisconsin drew more than 60 civic and business leaders from seven Midwestern states. During the two-day event, Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt III, Air National Guard director, welcomed the attendees, saying, “We need to work together, for us to learn more about what you do, and hopefully for you to learn more about what we do.” Among the planned activities, the Air Guard dispatched two KC-135 tankers to provide the attendees with a close-up view of air refueling operations as they flew them to the Volk Field, home to the Wisconsin National Guard’s Combat Readiness Training Center. (Volk Field report by TSgt. Jon LaDue)
The Air Force’s nascent KC-Z program, aimed at developing a next-generation family of systems for aerial refueling, will look to launch its analysis-of-alternatives study in 2024, years earlier than originally planned. Originally, the analysis of alternatives for KC-Z was set for “maybe in the 2030s,” Paul Waugh, program executive officer…