The Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has surpassed the 10,000 hour flying mark, clocking 10,500 hours as of late July—some 63 percent of them on combat missions. Making this accomplishment more outstanding is the fact that, until earlier this year when the first production models arrived in Southwest Asia, the Air Force had been flying development models in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Earlier this spring, the 388th Fighter Wing proved just 12 Airmen can operate an F-35 contingency location, refueling and rearming the fighters at spots across Georgia and South Carolina. The demonstration, part of exercise Agile Flag 23-1, marks yet another proof of concept for the Air Force’s plan to send…