Airmen from the 36th Contingency Response Group at Andersen AFB, Guam, and sailors from the US Naval Base Guam will sail to Wake Island, where they will assess the damage to the island and airfield operations following Super Typhoon Ioke. Two C-17 airlifters from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, had airlifted to Hawaii all 188 people on the island before the storm hit. Wake Island commander, Air Force Capt. Nate Harris, said island personnel had prepared facilities “as best we could.”
It'll take up to 18 months for Lockheed Martin to deliver the 100 or so F-35s that went directly from production line to storage, awaiting the completion of Tech Refresh 3 testing. Customers haven't complained about the order in which the backlog is being delivered.