The National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday opened a new exhibit on the MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft in its modern flight gallery. “We are proud to be the only place in the world with a permanent public display of a Reaper,” said retired Maj. Gen. Charles Metcalf, museum director, at the dedication ceremony. He said the exhibit will give visitors “the chance to get up close” to the armed reconnaissance platform, which is supporting the counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Reaper on display is one of the two pre-production YMQ-9 air vehicles that the Air Force ordered in 2003 from manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. On 2005, it became the first Reaper to fly in Afghanistan, accumulating 254 combat sorties. It will be on display near the museum’s RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. (Dayton report by Sarah Swan)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. still “believes” in his mantra of “Accelerate Change or Lose”—and indicated the doctrinal changes it produced when he was Air Force Chief of Staff played a role in the service’s recent response to Iran’s aerial assault on Israel, he…