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ir Force officials at Andersen AFB, Guam, reopened the base’s north runway June 18 after a two-year, $24 million reconstruction effort. The north runway is one of two parallel runways on the key Pacific region base. Airfield manager SMSgt. Darron Williams says the runway completion “gives us an exponential increase in the efficiency of the airfield.” Andersen certainly hasn’t let loss of its north runway curtail operations, as it continued to serve as the base for regular fighter and bomber rotations to the Pacific and to host exercises such as the ongoing Cope North. Japan deployed its F-2 fighters for the first time outside its territory and last week, as part of the exercise, the fighters dropped their first live weapons.
The advanced F-47 sixth-generation fighter remains on track to fly in the next two years, the senior Air Force acquisition officer overseeing the program said Feb. 25, as the service continues on its ambitious schedule to debut the air superiority-focused fighter by 2028—only three years after the contract was awarded…