Members of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., recently took special note of the fact that their F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters have amassed 250,000 hours of operation. Col. John Forsythe, commander of the 49th Operations Group, flew the record flight on July 25. The Air Force wants to move up retirement of its F-117 fleet to 2008 and has extended an olive branch to New Mexico lawmakers by announcing it plans to station a unit of its new F-22A stealth fighters in New Mexico.
In the wake of a major Chinese military shakeup, the head of U.S. Space Command warned of China’s “breathtakingly fast” advances in space during visits to Japan and South Korea. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting’s trip to the Indo-Pacific is his first overseas visit since taking command of SPACECOM in January.