Air Force battlefield airmen from Eielson AFB, Alaska, who have been training for a year-and-a-half with the Army’s 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from nearby Ft. Wainwright, left with the 172nd for Iraq Sunday—marking USAF’s first joint effort with a Stryker unit. Some 20 tactical air control party airmen—members of Eielson’s 3rd Air Support Operations Squadron— will direct combat and ISR aircraft from their Strykers, each manned with an Army driver and gunman, reports the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. (Read here about TACPs and ALOs.)
The last remaining T-1 Jayhawk at JBSA-Randolph, Texas, took its final flight to the "Boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., on July 15. The 99th Flying Training Squadron will train pilots using T-6 and simulator until it gets T-7 Red Hawk in fiscal 2026.