Members of Air Force Reserve
Command’s 920th Rescue Wing flew fully a third of their Hurricane Katrina sorties in the dark in an area peppered with power lines and buildings, not to mention other aircraft. The Patrick AFB, Fla., airmen credit the warfighting technology in their HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters. To help them pluck from danger 1,043 people stranded by Hurricane Katrina, the Reservists used a combination of night vision goggles, forward-looking infrared radar, and electronically linked mission overlays.
Space Force Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, the director of the Pentagon’s Golden Dome program, warned that without the Defense Department’s $350 billion reconciliation request, the homeland missile defense effort is in dire straits.