The airmen who operate and maintain US Air Forces in Europe’s C-20 distinguished visitor aircraft are not immune to deployments to combat operations areas. The Kaiserslautern American reports that a C-20H team from the 76th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein AB, Germany, recently deployed to fly DVs in and around Afghanistan and Iraq. They flew 162 sorties within a three-month period. They got high praise from Lt. Gen. Gary North, US Central Command Air Forces commander, who said, “The 76th AS team has been the most professional airlift support crew we’ve had.”
A top Pentagon tech official called on industry this week to help the military develop “lighter, more efficient” directed energy weapons designed to go on aircraft and conduct special operations missions or down drones—areas where the Air Force’s directed energy efforts have been quiet as of late.