Ever wonder what happens to unexpended ammunition rounds downloaded from A-10 Thunderbolts—more familiarly called Warthogs? The Air Force uses a GFU-7 machine—called the Dragon—to separate brass from the ammo, returning unused rounds to a container to be reloaded. Playing the statistics game, the 455th Munitions Flight, Bagram AB, Afghanistan, estimates that, since Sept. 15 it has “expended” more than 23,000 rounds of 30 mm ammo, 15,000 countermeasures, 103 rockets, 14 500-pound air burst bombs, and nine laser-guided bombs.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.