Airmen and aircraft from the 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson AFB, Alaska, are bound for Afghanistan as part of USAF’s latest air and space expeditionary force. The base has deployed some 400 airmen from the 355th Fighter Squadron and 354th Maintenance Group. The maintainers worked in 12-hours shifts to get their A-10 Warthogs ready for the pilots who would fly them on the 11,000-mile trip.
RTX’s Raytheon unit was able to “significantly” extend the range of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile using mostly software changes in experimental tests last year, expanding the reach and lethality of the standard U.S. dogfighting weapon, company officials said Sept. 15.