Daily Report

Sept. 24, 2008

RQ-4 Flies Atlantic

An Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle flew for the first time across the Atlantic to Southwest Asia, making the 19-hour flight from NAS Patuxent River in Maryland. The milestone flight came on Sept. 20 and USAF expected to...

Chilton’s No. 1

The head of US Strategic Command, Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, has declared that nuclear deterrence is his command’s No. 1 priority, despite the importance of STRATCOM’s other “main lines of operations”: space operations and cyberspace operations. Following recent nuclear...

Raytheon Offers UAV Aid

Raytheon has provided the Air Force an unsolicited proposal for a new advanced common ground control system for the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle that it believes will speed training, decrease operator error, and enable multiple aircraft control, according to a...

Not News Category

A short report in the Chicago Tribune quotes Pentagon acquisition guru John Young as saying the Air Force will delay contract award for the Transformational Satellite Communications program. We reported same last week, when Gen. Robert Kehler, Air Force Space...

Blum for Northern Command

We failed to note that Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended Army Lt. Gen. Steven Blum to become deputy commander of US Northern Command. In remarks before the National Guard Association conference in Baltimore Monday, Gates noted that this summer he...

Adding to the Viper List

The Air Force now has 24 pilots who can claim more than 4,000 hours in the F-16 fighter. According to a Sept. 19 release, Lt. Col. John Wynne surpassed that number on Sept. 12 during a training mission out of...

Tyndall Airman Receives Bronze

The Air Force awarded the Bronze Star medal to SMSgt. David Smith for his actions while deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Smith is a contracting specialist at Tyndall AFB, Fla. Maj. Jonathan Terry, 325th Contracting Squadron commander, said,” This award...

A Shorter Aircraft Testing Process?

Top officials at Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee expect training in a process called Design of Experiments to enable the Air Force to shorten its new aircraft testing cycle. AEDC put 18 engineers from different disciplines through a battery...

Still Spraying After Ike

Airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown ARB, Ohio, are flying out of Barksdale AFB, La., to cover areas of Louisiana with insect spray to keep down flies and mosquitoes in the wake of heavy rainfall...

An Unlikely Power Source?

A researcher funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research has developed a nanocomposite material that has the potential to enable electronic devices to convert excess heat into energy that could be adapted to a wide range of applications...