The Government Accountability Office recently dismissed a short-lived bid protest filed by Air Tractor regarding the Air Force’s effort to vet and buy light-attack planes. “Air Tractor Inc. protested the Air Force solicitation notice of contracting action, and the protest was dismissed after the Air Force elected to take corrective action,” service spokesman Capt. Jake Bailey said Aug. 12. Air Tractor protested to GAO on June 6, according to the watchdog’s website. The protest was dismissed June 28. Air Tractor pitched a variant of its AT-802 armed crop duster with L3 Technologies for the light-attack experiment in 2017. Sierra Nevada Corp. and Embraer’s A-29 and Textron Aviation’s AT-6B are the only aircraft still standing after two rounds of experimentation. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

A Kentucky Air National Guard pilot on Aug. 10 received the Distinguished Flying Cross for averting disaster when his C-130 began a potentially fatal descent in 2016. Lt. Col. John Hourigan, a Hercules pilot with the 123rd Airlift Wing of the Kentucky Air National Guard, ordered that an engine be shut down as the aircraft violently shook and lost altitude during a training mission. Investigators later discovered the engine suffered a propeller failure. Read the full story by Brian Everstine.

Afghanistan can serve as a proving ground for the Pentagon’s future cloud infrastructure known as JEDI, as artificial-intelligence algorithms are introduced into America’s nearly 20-year war, Defense Department officials suggested in a recent media roundtable. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud can pair with other, closed-off military clouds and systems so troops can access information from anywhere. Officials see applications for both AI algorithms and a new cloud to hold the data in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon’s chief information officer will head overseas to look at how forces manage their data in theater now. A JEDI contract award to Amazon or Microsoft is now slated for this fall at the earliest because source-selection work was put on hold during a failed bid protest by Oracle. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

The Air Force’s KC-46 fleet is growing. Last week, Boeing delivered three KC-46s—one for McConnell AFB, Kan., and two for Pease ANGB, N.H. The Aug. 8 deliveries to Pease were the first next-generation tankers for the Air National Guard, as the base expects to have 12-aircraft Pegasus fleet. The deliveries come as the aircraft continues to test its refueling system, including multi-point refueling of an F/A-18 from both the KC-46’s wing pods and center drogue system. The KC-46 is also testing its main refueling boom on the F-16, according to Boeing. —Brian Everstine

The Air Force has wrapped up its effort to rewing its A-10 fleet so the Thunderbolt can keep flying through the 2030s. The Ogden Air Logistics Complex at Hill AFB, Utah, recently installed the last set of new wings on A-10 No. 80-0252. The plan to install 173 new wings began in 2011, and all but 11 were installed at Ogden, according to a Hill release. The effort began with a $1.1 billion contract to Boeing in 2007, but temporarily ended in 2016 in part because of cost, Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mike Holmes said in early 2018. Funding returned in the fiscal 2019 budget that allowed the Air Force to finish the job. The Air Force expects the new wings to last for the equivalent of about 10,000 flight hours without a depot inspection, according to the release. —Brian Everstine

Gunnery Sgt. Scott A. Koppenhafer, 35, was killed Aug. 10 in combat in Iraq, the Pentagon said Aug. 11. Small arms fire killed the special operations Marine who was supporting Iraqi security forces in an undisclosed region of the country. A native of Mancos, Colo., Koppenhafer was assigned to the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion of Marine Special Forces Operations Command at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He is survived by his wife and two children. —Brian Everstine