The base cinema at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., is closing, along with movie halls across the country, as the film industry transitions to digital instead of 35-millimeter projection film, reports South Dakota’s Rapids City Journal. Upgrading the movie theater with new digital movie equipment would cost approximately $120,000, which neither the base nor the Army Air Force Exchange Service was willing to invest giving dwindling audiences, according to the newspaper’s Jan. 7 report. The cinema will close for good on Jan. 21. Over the past few months, several installations, including Dyess AFB, Tex., and Maxwell AFB, Ala., have shuttered cinema doors for similar reasons, according to press reports. The movie theater at Scott AFB, Ill., showed its final film on Dec. 30, according to a Jan. 7 report from the Belleville News-Democrat. (Includes Abilene Reporter-News report and Maxwell report by Rebecca Burylo.)
The U.S., South Korea, and Japan flew an unusual trilateral flight with two U.S. B-52H Stratofortress bombers escorted by two Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s, and two ROK Air Force KF-16 fighters—both countries’ respective variants of the F-16—July 11. That same weekend, the top military officers of the three nations…