The 36th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron deployed to Andersen AFB, Guam, from Minot AFB, N.D., has just set a record for launching its 200th consecutive sortie with a 100 percent mission effectiveness rate for their venerable B-52 bombers. Basically over the course of a five-month deployment, MSgt Frantz Juan-Pierre, a unit section chief, says the unit’s maintainers “caught a couple of breaks” and found “there was nothing we couldn’t fix.”
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.
