The BRAC commission voted 6-1 to hold off on shuttering Cannon AFB, N.M., but it decided to move the base’s 50 F-16s to six other bases. The base will move into the “enclave” category until December 2009, by which time the base will have had to find another mission, if it doesn’t want to be killed off. The base narrowly missed being spared completely. In an earlier vote, one of the commissioners, retired Air Force Gen. Lloyd “Fig” Newton, led an effort to move T-38 training from Moody AFB, Ga., to Cannon. That would have done the trick, but Newton could line up only four favorable votes in the nine-member commission.
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.