Pacific Air Forces sent some 6,000 airmen to locations around the world this past year and expects to see its rate of deployments increase by about five to 10 percent next year, reports Stars and Stripes. A PACAF spokesman attributed part of the increase to in-lieu-of taskings. About half of those airmen PACAF sends on deployments go to Iraq.
When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Dan Caine described the 150 aircraft used in Operation Absolute Resolve, the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, he referenced many by name, including the F-35 and F-22 fighters and B-1 bomber. Not specified, however, were “remotely piloted drones,” among them a secretive aircraft spotted and photographed returning to Puerto…

