Members of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., recently took special note of the fact that their F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters have amassed 250,000 hours of operation. Col. John Forsythe, commander of the 49th Operations Group, flew the record flight on July 25. The Air Force wants to move up retirement of its F-117 fleet to 2008 and has extended an olive branch to New Mexico lawmakers by announcing it plans to station a unit of its new F-22A stealth fighters in New Mexico.
Trainees in Basic Military Training and technical school no longer have the option to try alternate PT drills if they fail an initial assessment, according to a policy change the Air Force made in April. The move is part of a larger shift out of the classroom and into hands-on,…