The mission call sign “Reach 641” is wax-penciled on the windshield of a KC-135 Stratotanker June 21, at Moses Lake, Wash. The KC-135 was being deployed from its home at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., to the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, where the tanker crew for the plane flew it over the Arctic Circle and the North Pole for the first time June 21 to 22, as part of an “iron swap” mission along a new, more efficient route from Washington state to Kyrgyzstan.