Airmen at Kadena AB, Japan, on the island of Okinawa have been prepping the base and its aircraft for the first typhoon of the year, scheduled to hit the island this morning. Facing potential winds of 125 knots from Typhoon Man-Yi, Maj. Dani Johnson reports that the base began moving fighters and helicopters into shelters and sent larger aircraft—KC-135s, RC-135s, MC-130s, E-3 AWACS, and Navy P-3s—off to Andersen AFB, Guam. The Okinawa facility escaped severe storms last year, but weather officer Capt. Jonathan Wilson says that if this typhoon “moves even slightly in a westward direction, we will have a much more serious storm.”
The crash of a T-38 trainer jet this May—which caused a weekslong pause in flights across the fleet—was caused by an improperly installed pin for one of the jet’s horizontal stabilizers, according to a new accident report released Oct. 30. When the pin disengaged midflight, it created the slightest amount…