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 B-52H Stratofortress that crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on June 15 was helping test a new advanced radar that is key to a sweeping modernization of the six-decade old bomber.