An article this week in the Rapid City Journal recounts the first flight of Allegiant Air from Rapid City, S.D., to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, the new name for Williams Gateway Airport. Reporter Dan Daly notes that the airport is the product of a “13-year effort by Mesa and other nearby cities to turn the former Williams Air Force Base into a civilian economic engine for the east end of the Phoenix area.” Williams fell to an early BRAC, and Daly goes on to report how Ellsworth barely escaped BRAC 2005.
Members of the Air Force Reserve’s 920th Rescue Wing helped save 11 airplane crash survivors off the coast of Florida on May 12. The Reserve Airmen were flying an HC-130J Combat King II and an HH-60W Jolly Green II on a routine training flight when a Coast Guard call diverted…