Gen. Paul Hester, commander of Pacific Air Forces, plans to take possession next month of PACAF’s first F-22A Raptor. He told attendees at AFA’s Orlando symposium that he is going to Marietta, Ga., to pick up the first Elmendorf AFB, Alaska-bound F-22. The Air Force has now fully equipped the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley AFB, Va., with Raptors, so the service’s top fighter will begin bedding down in the Pacific, starting in Alaska and then in Hawaii.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.