Air Force officials at Bagram AB, Afghanistan, on July 22 announced the crash of an MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle in the southern part of that country on July 21. There was no other information available. The service lost two Predator UAVs in Iraq, one in June and one in May. We are still awaiting word on the cause of the June crash, but the service attributed the one in May to mechanical failure.
Air Force exercises in the Indo-Pacific may soon get even bigger and more robust, as lawmakers move to invest more than $620 million in such efforts. The bulk of that money, contained in a $150 billion reconciliation package currently making its way through Congress, is $532.6 million for earmarked for…