The head of the Massachusetts National Guard, Brig. Gen. Oliver Mason Jr. has confirmed that the Air National Guard unit at Otis ANGB, Mass., will transition from fighter aircraft to intelligence processing. Reports had been circulating for months that Otis would be the site for one of USAF’s new distributed ground stations. The ANG’s 102nd Fighter Wing will lose its F-15s under BRAC 2005 and transition to its new mission—and be renamed—sometime in 2008.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.