Daily Report

Feb. 10, 2009

Closing Manas One Step Closer

The Kyrgyz parliament’s defense committee yesterday approved a bill to close Manas Air Base, a critical air mobility hub for supporting US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, reported the Associated Press. The measure now moves to the full parliament, which...

C-17 Contract Let

The Air Force has upped the number of C-17 airlifters that it has on order with Boeing to 205 with the award of a $2.95 billion contract for 15 more on Feb. 6. (DOD announcement) Boeing’s C-17 spokesman Jerry Drelling...

First-Hand Look

Recapitalization of the fleet was on the mind of Gen. Donald Hoffman, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, as he visited the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Feb. 9 at an air base in Southwest Asia as part of his first...

Not Less Than 250

That’s how many F-22s the United States needs “for the good of the nation and the world” to shore up its conventional deterrence capabilities for the next 20 years, writes Rebecca Grant in a new study she authored for the...

From State to Broader State

The National Guard’s State Partnership Program is a valuable tool for forging international military-to-military relationships that can help world governments prevent and better respond to global calamities, said Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau. Speaking...

SBSS Passes Tests

Boeing announced Feb. 5 that its industry team building the Air Force’s space based space surveillance system has successfully completed the satellite’s initial testing and has demonstrated end-to-end mission functionality of the system’s ground and space elements. These events showed...

Automated Aerial Refueling Advances

The Air Force Research Lab has awarded a Boeing-led industry team a four-year, $49 million contract to continue work on the technology that will enable unmanned aerial vehicles to rendezvous autonomously with tanker aircraft and refuel, the company announced Feb....

Kirtland Shuffle

The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center has launched an 18-month realignment that will shift personnel from its Det. 3 at Kirtland AFB, N.M., to detachments in California, Colorado, or Florida so that the center is better situated to...

Air Force Art Arrives at Airport

About 50 pieces of art from the Air Force art collection are now on display at the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport outside of Baltimore through July. The exhibit opened Feb. 5 in the airport’s international terminal. “It’s from this...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest Asia

Feb. 6-7, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 56 33 89 1,480 CAS/Armed Recon 76 125 201 3,762 Airlift 260 260 4,868 Air refueling 90 90 1,748 Total 640 11,858 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...