The a
irmen of the 494th Fighter Squadron deployed to Southwest Asia from RAF Lakenheath, Britain, flew 972 combat sorties and became the first unit to employ the Small Diameter Bomb in combat. And, that’s not all. The F-15E Strike Eagle unit also was first to employ new mission planning software. The unit covered both Afghanistan (82 missions) and Iraq (890 missions) during its four-month deployment that began just as Air Combat Command officially declared the SDB initially operational.
In his first professional move since retiring from the Space Force at the end of August, former Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman will lead the board of advisors for Voyager Technologies, the firm announced Nov. 2.