The Air Force Research Laboratory has reactivated its 56-year-old wind tunnel and plans to cut the ribbon next week on the refurbished facility, marking the culmination of a $2.8 million upgrade project. AFRL and Wyle Laboratories personnel helped complete the upgrade to reopen the facility that was closed in 1996, when aeronautical research funding was in “free fall,” Col. Michael Leahy, the director of AFRL’s Wright Research Site told Timothy Gaffney of the Dayton Daily News. The tunnel is known as the Trisonic Gasdynamics Facility.
A half-dozen pilots from one of the Air Force’s premier F-16 units, the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., have been awarded one of the service’s highest decorations for their role in Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.