A cadre of Air Force officers work under the title Air Component Coordination Element in Afghanistan, where they both the International Security and Assistance Force and the US-led Combined Joint Task Force 76. Officers with the ACCE, who provide expertise to meld air and space assets into any campaign, did operate primarily from Bagram Air Base, but with the rise of ISAF, they’ve had to create another element in Kabul.
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.
